Honest Liar
by aWhiteBlankPage
Summary: Bella once told me that there was nothing braver than a flower growing through a crack in the sidewalk. I laughed because she was always giving feelings to things that don't feel. If she was standing next to me, I'd tuck the dandelion behind her ear. Or she'd blow on it and make a wish. A hundred wishes. Or maybe just one.
1. The Scar

CHAPTER ONE: THE SCAR

_Edward_

_The Town_

* * *

I am the worst kind of liar.

I live in a town that pretends to be a city. The downtown streets sit at right angles, named with letters and numbers, and give way to the winding hills where people live.

The homeless are not anonymous here. Everyone knows them by name and by face. They are weathered and dirty, but they probably have more money in their pockets than I do. And when I pass them on the street, they know that I am the one who is a miscreant. I can see it in their eyes.

My legs are restless, pacing the grid of streets until there is no more ground to cover. I should go home, but it's like I have the wrong blood in my veins. My muscles ache from painting all day. Other reasons too. I wipe the sweat from my brow and stare into the sun. Seeing spots isn't the distraction it used to be.

I try to pick the dried white paint out from under my fingernails. But it refuses to leave.

I took my first shot of tequila out of a coffee mug when I was thirteen. It tasted like poison. I went back for more. I drank myself stupid that Saturday afternoon. My father found me wrapped around the toilet. He didn't dump the liquor down the sink. He simply moved the bottles into his bedroom.

He claims to be sober now. He's a liar too. Although I haven't seen him in years. There was no falling out, no dramatic declaration that I wasn't going to come home any more. I simply stopped going.

I pull my ringing phone from my pocket and stare at the flashing photo of my wife. She's laughing, trying to cover her face with one hand. She's beautiful. Happy.

I answer the call to make the photograph disappear. "Hey."

"Are you on your way home?" There is a smile in her voice and it almost makes me smile too.

"The job ran long." I've been wandering the streets for hours.

She exhales into the phone. "I thought we could try tonight."

I choose not to answer her question that isn't a question. "I'll be home soon." And it's true for the next five seconds. Until I reach the crosswalk. Until I make a different decision and turn left to save myself from suffocating.

I send her a quick text. _Emmett wants to meet up for a drink. Be home soon._

My wife has a pink scar on the inside of her left knee. I've never asked her how it got there, but every time I lie to her I think about that scar.

I walk past the blue-eyed man with too-dark skin and filthy yellow hair. He is wearing too many clothes, too many layers of black that belong in the snow. His eyes are ice on my skin, blatantly staring, daring me to look at him. They scream _liar_. A cigarette hangs from his cracked lips.

Smoking is a disgusting habit.

I round the corner, counting my footsteps.

This will be the last time.

I don't have anything left in my pockets. Except a wad of cash from doing work a monkey could do.

I know where all of the pay phones are in this town. I never use my cell.

I don't let myself think about what I'm doing.

An hour later, I hold the bag of pills protectively in my pocket. I walk all the way to the opposite end of downtown, far from the elderly woman who now has my money, far from my home, far from my wife.

I find the hole in the mangled gate that leads to the freeway underpass. The pillars are covered in chipped paint. This town's failing attempt to beautify corruption. I can remember laughing at the cement covered in yellow sunflowers when they were first painted. Laughing because the homeless who sleep here at night don't care about cement flowers. My wife thought they were beautiful. We were just married. It wasn't the first time I realized that we don't see the world with the same eyes.

This place is abandoned during the day. Because there is no sun.

I pull two pills from my pocket and they're in my mouth before I can look at them. I hold them in my teeth.

I swallow one dry. Before I do something stupid.

The second one pressed to the roof of my mouth, I tell myself to swallow it. But I know it won't be enough.

I bite down, chewing it to bits. Letting out the inside. It tastes like contempt. Infatuation. Opulence. Poverty.

I light a cigarette and lean my head back against the cool cement wall. Until I don't exist. Until the pack is gone, the sun is down and I'm not alone.

I close my eyes, just for a second. Until there is a shoe against my ribs. My hands immediately go to my pockets.

It's dark.

The blue eyed man towers over me. "You can't sleep here." His teeth are gray.

Lying on the concrete in the cold night air, I wish I was wearing more clothes.

"I'm not fucking sleeping." I'm on my feet, walking away from him. And even though he's behind me, I can feel his eyes burning my skin.

My phone vibrates in my pocket and I remember who I am.

_I'm going to sleep. Dinner's in the fridge._

I scroll through the missed texts. There are only two more. Two.

_Where are you?_

_Damn it Edward_

The guilt over wanting more from her seeps into my fingertips.

I pull a pill from my pocket and stare at it. Imagining the little old lady these are meant for. The little old lady whose body is wrecked with age and cancer. And then it hits me that she may die soon. I can feel it in my chest. Because what will I do then. But this is the last time. The last time.

I don't go straight home. I stop by the liquor store at the edge of town. For a bottle of cheap tequila. I will try to pick a fight with my wife.

I drink just enough to make my skin hot and my breath rancid. I try to remember the way it used to burn going down.

I leave the nearly full bottle on the edge of a concrete planter box, confident that it will keep _someone_ warm tonight.

I go home to my wife.

The porch light is on. The front door is unlocked. I hate it when she does that. When she sleeps alone in an unlocked house.

I hate it when I let her.

In the dark kitchen with my hand on the door to the fridge, I open it slowly. I stand in the glow of the light that looks warm but is colder than cold.

Spaghetti. My favorite. I feel sick.

I microwave it until I can see the steam rising. Hot enough to burn the roof of my mouth and remind me for days.

I leave the lights off in the kitchen.

I swallow down two huge bites. I dump the rest into the sink, flip the switch and listen to the jarring sound of the garbage disposal. Gripping the edge of the sink, the unsteady vibrations under my fingertips, I watch the tangled pile of spaghetti sit in the drain. Refusing to go under.

I use my hand to force it down. And I imagine the spinning blades taking me with them.

I jerk my hand away to erase the image.

A light flickers on behind me. I turn around to the sight of my wife standing at the top of the stairs. She rubs the sleep from her eyes. We stand in the harsh light, neither of us speaking.

She's wearing one of my old T-shirts. She says she likes the way it feels on her skin. A shirt that's been around since high school. When I was simply the boy who loved her. And she was the girl who didn't know it.

I turn the light off at the bottom of the stairs. It's the only way I can walk up them.

She doesn't move until I'm in her space. Until she can breathe me in.

She rests her hands on my chest, closing her fists around my shirt. Trying to decide if she's going to pull me to her or push me away.

My lips rest at the corner of her mouth, "I'm sorry."

She exhales against my skin. And my heart is beating.

I say it again. "I'm sorry." I say it forever. I mean it every time.

I am nothing without her forgiveness, her smile, her _close your eyes_. Nothing.

I rest my lips over her fluttering eyelid. She smells like sleep and resentment.

"Don't do it again." If only she knew what she was saying.

_Don't hate me_. "I won't." That was the last time. The very last time.

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not." I'm not.

She pulls me to her. My fingers slide under the unraveling hem of her shirt, hooking themselves in the tattered edge.

"Where were you, Edward?" She sounds defeated.

I don't know. "At a bar. I lost track of time."

I try not to think about that scar.

I run my lips over hers. _Forgive me. For things that aren't real. Please. Forgive me._

She doesn't speak. She doesn't move. She doesn't breathe.

_Pull me closer. Do it. Forgive me. Hate me. Do something._

I kiss her sleepy lips. The ones that don't kiss me back. "I'm sorry." I kiss the corner of her mouth. Until she's breathing. Running her nose along my cheek.

And with my lips on her lips, this time she kisses me back. She lets me have her mouth. I know she can taste the alcohol and cigarettes on my tongue. She forgives the lie.

Her hands pull at my jeans, and I freeze.

"I need to shower."

The darkest eyes in the darkest room stare me down. Until she walks away from me, with her lip caught between her teeth.

She tucks herself into our bed, with her feet on my side. I stare at her back, with her hair draped across the pillow, before I close the door to the bathroom.

Pulling the remaining pills from my filthy pocket, I hide them in one of my seven places.

In the shower, I scrub my skin raw. Trying to get to the filth that lives under the surface.

Standing in the open doorway with the towel around my waist, I wonder how much time has passed. If she's asleep or merely pretending. She's in the same exact place. Her feet. Her hair. She hasn't moved.

I drop the towel and slide under the sheets. They're cold against my too hot skin.

I lie next to her without touching her. For as long as I can. Until I feel like I might die.

I run my fingertips over her perfect elbow, down her forearm, until I reach her hand. Until she curls her fingers around mine. She turns to face me, never letting go.

I rest my ear to her chest. She has the brownest hair and the softest skin and the purest heartbeat.

She's been trying to get pregnant for nearly a year. She assures me that sometimes it takes a while. But I know better.

She won't get pregnant.

"Do you still want...?" I silence her with my mouth before she asks me something I can't answer. Because there are so many things I want and so many things I don't.

And right now there is only one thing that I need. She needs it too.

I run my thumb over the soft sliver of skin that is exposed between her shirt and her underwear. My thumb and then my lips. She laughs at the scratchy feeling of my face against her hip.

I undress her slowly, determined to make _this_ high last.

Pinned beneath me, she's still the girl I thought I could never have. She still looks at me like I'm an honest man. I want her to look at me now. But I don't want her to see me. I'm terrified of what she'll do if she ever actually _sees_ me.

Fuck me, love me, love me, fuck me. Just don't hate me or leave me or _see_ me.

With every thrust, every moan, I can't help but feel that my time is running out.

I cling to her.

She's a different kind of drug.

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N:**

**Susan betas and I love her more than she could possibly ever know. **

**Kim tells me I can when I think I can't and makes me smile when I want to cry.**

**CC has the memory of an elephant and the heart of a lion.**

**Thanks to the handful of you who gave me feedback on this first chapter. You gave me the courage to post!**

**And THANK YOU all for trusting me with this story. I'd love to hear from you :)**


	2. Willow Tree

CHAPTER TWO: WILLOW TREE

_The Country_

_Before_

* * *

I am a boy from a nowhere town. It's not even a town. Not really. The people here call it the foothills. It's nothing but a bunch of houses and country farmland. The men who live here think they are real cowboys, with the boots and the hats and the stupid grins.

We have exactly three restaurants, one grocery store, a post office and a church. And probably the largest feed and grain store that exists in the entire fucking world.

I've lived here my whole life, but one day I'll get out. And when I do, it will be forever.

I wouldn't be caught dead in a pair of cowboy boots. I don't want to be a farmer or a fucking postal worker or a good, church-going citizen.

If our school had a football team, which it doesn't, I wouldn't be on it. Emmett would be quarterback. He probably would have fucked half of the cheerleading squad too. We don't have cheerleaders or homecoming or the kind of high school they sell in movies. If we did, I'd be the kid who hangs out behind the bleachers. We don't have bleachers.

Here in the sticks we have cow pastures that go on for days and a pathetic, falling down school. We get extra credit for bringing in a roll of paper towels or a package of dry erase markers.

My chemistry teacher insists on saying good morning to every single student that walks through the door. I usually ignore him, but today I wish he would tell me one good thing about this day. I want to scream at him that I'm barely passing this class and I'm down to my last cigarette. There is nothing good about today.

The freeway runs up the middle of this place and it's the _only_ way out. There is nothing to keep me here, except maybe a girl who doesn't know me. A girl with the prettiest skin and the darkest eyes and long, shiny brown hair that I want to wrap around my finger. But I'm willing to bet that she wants out too. Everyone here wants out.

She sits in front of me in this class and takes notes furiously every day. I watch her hair and wonder what it would feel like against my skin.

She has lived down the street from me for a year. In the brand new, two-story, stucco house with the greenest lawn and a sprinkler system. Her house and her clean, white fence belong in the suburbs. The neighbors all still glare when they drive by. They're jealous. Everyone here is jealous of the Swans and their money.

Of all places to retire, they chose this town. They bought a parcel of land and built it up with one of the only two-story houses for miles.

Bella Swan also has a boyfriend. I've gone to school with him forever. When we were in kindergarten he had a He-Man lunchbox. His mother always cut the crust off his sandwiches and packed him chocolate milk. One day, I took his lunchbox during morning recess and ate everything inside. We were five. I don't think the fucker has ever forgiven me. He drives a Mustang and thinks it makes him cool. It's a piece of shit. He's also too pretty to be a dude. If he wasn't such a joke, I'd hate him.

He's waiting for her after class lets out and the sight of his arm over her shoulder makes me want to punch him in the face.

She isn't in any of my other classes and the rest of the day is boring as fuck.

Emmett usually gives me a ride home, but he just got a job at the only place that is ever hiring. He now spends his afternoons carrying around bags of grain for minimum wage.

I have a car, but no license. You have to have money to get a license. You have to take classes and pay for behind the wheel training. You have to have a parent who will sit in the passenger seat and yell at you while you try to park and shit like that. I don't have any of those things. I have a father who is a drunk.

Bella drives her father's Mercedes. It's a pretentious champagne color and it stands out even more than that shiny house. I'm surprised it hasn't been keyed in the school parking lot.

I walk along the windy road, on the seam where the pavement meets the dirt. The occasional car whirs past me, honking when my presence around a bend surprises the driver.

I can always hear them coming and I tell myself that I can jump out of the way if I need to. There is a split second when I can hear and feel the air rush past me as the car passes, and it almost feels like flying.

There is a stretch of road that floods every time we get a storm. The pavement is crumbling away. I can hear a car approaching as I step farther into the street, daring it to hit me.

It doesn't hit me. It doesn't pass. I turn to look as I hear it slowing behind me. I half expect to see the sheriff.

But it's a champagne, sparkling-clean Mercedes.

My feet refuse to move as she pulls up beside me, the window already down.

She looks at me for the first time in my entire fucking life. "Hey." And now she's speaking to me with her perfect lips. "You shouldn't walk that close to traffic. I almost hit you."

I stare at her.

"I'm Bella, by the way."

Of course you are. You live down the street, I sit behind you in first period and I think I'm in love with you.

She raises her eyebrows expectantly. If Emmett were here, he'd be feeding her some smooth line. I've got nothing.

I clear my throat. "Edward." Because it's the only word I know.

The corner of her mouth lifts into a smile. "I know who you are."

She doesn't know shit.

"Need a ride?"

With my hand on the door handle, I hesitate for only a second before opening the door and climbing in. This is the nicest car I've ever ridden in and I'm pretty sure I just ruined her father's floor mat with my shoes.

She smiles at me before turning up the stereo. Windows down, she doesn't say a word. She doesn't even ask me where I live.

She drives by her own house and then passes mine, turning down the dirt road that leads around back, like she knows exactly where she's going. She pulls up under the shade of the ancient oaks, next to my dad's old Camaro. The car cover is hanging off of it, blowing ragged in the wind.

I don't ask her to come in. She just... gets out.

I slam the passenger door a little harder than necessary and quickly scan around for anything that I don't want her to see. It looks like a junkyard back here. She walks over the crunchy gravel, running her hands over everything in her reach. It makes me nervous.

"Don't you need to get home?"

She stills her hand on the edge of a tarp that covers some piece of crap log splitter. "I can go if you want."

"No. I mean, don't. I mean, stay."

I don't know if it's the desperation in my tone or the look on my face, but she doesn't move. "Alright." She drops the edge of the tarp and runs her hands through her hair. "Is your dad home?"

"No, he's at work." Probably. Possibly.

"Where's your mom?"

"Not here."

I don't tell her that I don't remember my mom. I don't tell her what she is.

"Must be nice. My parents are always home."

Yeah. Nice.

I lead her around the side of the garage and into the house.

She follows silently without a word and I don't know what this is. I don't know what's happening.

We stand awkwardly in the living room. My house has wall-to-wall pink carpet. And floral drapes. It's gross and an ever-present reminder of who used to live here.

I'm embarrassed to have Bella here. Embarrassed for her to see how I live. She doesn't comment on the decor. She stares out the back window, appraising the wild land.

"You have a dog?"

"No dog. Just a dog run."

Eyebrow raised. "And a dog house."

"And a dog house," I repeat back, rather than explain the ridiculousness.

She points over to the stables. "Let me guess, there aren't any horses in there either."

"No, no horses."

She continues to stare out the window, her eyes far away in thought. "Do you ever wonder about the people who used to live here?"

Her question makes my heart race. "No." My _mother_ used to live here.

"That's one of the best parts of old houses," she goes on, "they have this whole history and you're just a small part of their story."

I stare at her profile. "What?"

"The stables, the dog house, it all belonged to someone. Can't you just imagine the family who lived here once? What it might have been like? It makes me want to peel back the wallpaper and see what's underneath."

"You think about weird shit."

She smiles at me, blushing slightly, before quickly turning away, staring back out the window. Her face is mostly hidden from me and I wish I hadn't said that.

I grab her wrist without thinking, forcing her to look at me. I can feel her pulse under my thumb, fluttering away. I know I should let go, but I don't.

She yanks her arm away instead, holding it protectively up to her chest. "I'm not afraid of you."

Fuck. "Don't go."

"I didn't say I was going." I don't know if she's brave or stupid.

I step closer to the windowsill with my hands resting on the ledge next to hers. My elbow brushes against her arm. She doesn't move away.

"Hey, have you ever climbed that tree?" she asks, her voice laced with excitement.

"When I was a kid."

She laughs. "What are you _now_?"

I have no idea what I am now, but I've had just about enough of looking at the yard.

I push away from the windowsill and make my way to the kitchen. She follows me silently. I watch her eyes travel over every inch of the walls. I pull a bottle of vodka from the freezer and two glasses from the dishwasher.

"Want a drink?"

She just stares at me for the longest time. I wish she wouldn't. I'm the one to look away.

Before I can pick up the bottle again, she grabs my hand, pulling me along towards the sliding glass door that leads to the back deck. As soon as the fresh air meets her lungs, she lets go of me and makes a run for it like she's trying to get out of the rain. Except the sky is the bluest blue. I can't help but chase after her, following her hair as it whips in the wind and the hypnotizing sound of her laugh.

Bella's property is covered in wildflowers. Ours is covered in star thistle.

We are the only house around with a willow tree. They belong near river beds. They steal the water from the ground.

She doesn't even hesitate. She's climbing up, taking advantage of the lower branches that have never been trimmed. I stand on one of the large roots and watch her. She doesn't know what she's doing but she doesn't care.

She settles herself on a thick branch and smiles down at me, breathless and laughing. "Aren't you coming up?"

And so we sit in the old willow tree. The one that sucks the ground dry. Surrounded by the hanging branches, the rest of the world doesn't exist. It's the two of us.

Her fingers play with the swaying branches. "This would have been the coolest place to grow up."

She pulls at the branch in front of her face, peeling it from the tree.

I'm mesmerized by her hands as she twists the branch around and around, until it's all tucked in. She reaches over and places it on my head. And then she laughs. She laughs hysterically until I'm laughing with her.

"I'm sure I look like a fool."

"No. Not a fool."

"Then what?"

She blinks twice. "You look happy."

I try to get rid of my grin but I can't.

"Edward, why aren't we friends?"

You're too good. Too pretty. Too taken. And I don't want to be your _friend_.

"I don't know."

"Well, we should be friends. I decided. Need a ride to school tomorrow?"

"What about your boyfriend?"

She scoffs at me. "I don't have a boyfriend."

"But I thought... I mean, I thought..."

"Well you thought wrong." She laughs again. Like I'm the funniest person in the world. "Jake's not my boyfriend."

Thank fucking God. But I've seen the way he looks at her. The way he always has his hands on her. I'm not that stupid.

"So, your parents won't let you date?"

"Oh they'd be thrilled if I had a boyfriend. I'm pretty sure my mother's biggest fear is that I might be a closeted lesbian."

I can't help but chuckle. "Then what's the problem?"

"I don't want to be like them. Married to someone I have nothing in common with because I was stupid enough to think I was in love at seventeen."

"So you love him then?"

She rolls her eyes but doesn't ask who I'm talking about. "I don't even know what that means."

_I_ love you.

"I want to finish high school and go to college in the city. My parents are trying to bribe me to move back here after school. We'll see."

Of course she'll go to college. Of course.

"What about you? Where do you want to go to school?"

This conversation is making me feel like a loser. I'm not going to college. "Did you know most of the trees here are riddled with mistletoe?"

"_What_?"

"Mistletoe. It's a parasite. It attaches itself to the oak trees."

She doesn't believe me. "The same stuff that people hang up at Christmastime and kiss under?"

"Yeah."

I wish we were sitting in an oak tree. I want to kiss her. In a tree.

"You know weird shit, Edward."

I pull the beaten pack of cigarettes and my lighter from my pocket. I hold my last one in my fingers, rolling it back and forth.

She stares while I light it.

I take a drag, close my eyes and let the nicotine hit my lungs.

I hold the cigarette out to her. I don't tell her it's my last.

She wrinkles her nose up. "Smoking is disgusting."

I choke out a laugh. "I'm quitting tomorrow."

"Sure you are."

"This is my last one. I swear." Especially now that smoking is disgusting.

"Hey, Edward?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't like liars."

I take the tree branch crown from my head and place it on hers. She doesn't smile. She wants something else. Something I can't give her.

She brushes the leaves from her face. "Well, I should get home."

Panic immediately begins to fester in my gut. I want to grab hold of her again. This time, I don't. I watch her hair as she slowly climbs down.

She leaves me in the willow tree with my cigarette.

I listen to the sound of her car on the gravel as she drives out under the old oaks.

I don't like liars either.

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N:**

**Thank you for all of the support for the first chapter!**

**Susan and Kim, thanks for being smart, for making this better and for loving high school.**

**To those of you who asked, all chapters will be EPOV. **

**This story won't have a linear timeline. It's not meant to be confusing, it's just the way it wanted to be told in my head. One day I'll write a normal story like a normal person ;)**

**Next update on Tuesday :)**


	3. Phone Call

CHAPTER THREE: PHONE CALL

_The Town... The Country_

_After_

* * *

I am a man. That's it. Nothing else is relevant. Not even my empty drawers and nearly empty pockets. Or the fact that I no longer have seven places. Because I am _only_ a man with a bare left hand. Not a husband.

There is a vacant lot in the middle of downtown, on the corner of 2nd and A Street. It serves as the temporary home to pumpkins every October and Christmas trees every December.

The rest of the year, it simply sits, covered in green, green grass and weeds. I toe at the mound of dirt where the sidewalk meets the abandoned land, inadvertently snapping the stem of a dandelion.

I pluck it from the cement, and watch it struggle in the breeze.

Bella told me once that there was nothing braver than a flower growing through a crack in the sidewalk. I laughed because she was always giving feelings to things that don't feel.

If she was standing next to me, I'd tuck the dandelion behind her ear. Or she'd blow on it and make a wish. A hundred wishes. Or maybe just one.

I cling to it, crushing the stem without meaning to. I hold on to the stupid flower, or weed, or whatever it is, until I can't look at it anymore.

She's not here. Because I'm a liar. And I don't deserve any wishes of my own. I throw the dandelion to the ground and walk the rest of the way to that empty house.

With my key in the lock, I can hear the blaring ring of the house phone, antagonizing the silence. The phone that _never_ rings.

I fumble with my keys, leaving the door wide open behind me as I run to the kitchen.

"Hello?"

The line is quiet except for the sound of my own labored breathing. My heart gallops away with the possibility that she might be calling.

"Edward?"

It's not her. Of course it's not her. She doesn't call me. I no longer exist to her.

"Dad?"

"Son." His raspy voice is hauntingly familiar even though it's been years. He sounds exactly the same. He sounds trashed.

I can picture him sitting in his kitchen with the phone in one hand and a drink in the other, agonizing over calling before hastily pressing the buttons. I can picture him staring out the back window as he speaks. Staring beyond the deck, past the old swing set and the pond. Bella's parents' house in the distance.

"How are you, Son?"

I don't know how to answer that question, that man, so I turn it back on him because he won't have an answer either. "How are _you_?"

He lets out a long sigh. Neither of us speaks. I wonder how long we can do this before one of us hangs up.

"I'm losing the house, Edward."

"What?"

Another long pause. "The house," he breathes into the phone.

I heard him the first time, but I don't understand. The house was paid for years ago.

"How is that possible?"

"I had bills."

I laugh. It's bitter and mocking. Bills or _bottles_.

"I thought you'd want to know. Take some of your things before the bank takes everything."

"How long?" I snap at him.

"A week."

"Fucking shit, Dad."

He doesn't respond. The sound of his breathing makes me sick.

"Where are you planning on going?"

More silence. I want to tell him that he can't stay here. I keep my mouth shut. I'm not that cruel. This is what I tell myself. But cruelty lies in my silence. He's my father.

"Can you drive up in the morning?" He sounds like he's about to cry.

I always told myself that if he ever asked me to visit, I would. He's asking. And this is my only chance.

"Alright."

"Be careful of the speed trap on that last stretch of highway."

"Yeah, I know." Except I don't know. It's been too long since I've driven those hills to know anything. I don't tell him that I'll be taking a bus.

"See you tomorrow, Son." The way he calls me _Son_. Like he's trying to prove it to himself.

I hang up the phone without saying goodbye and immediately regret it. He's not the one I hate.

Or the one I miss.

I walk up the stairs, towards the bedroom that used to belong to two instead of one.

The banister is wobbly. Still. The doors don't close properly, the floors are crooked and the wallpaper in the dining room is peeling. Still.

This is _our_ house. Even if it isn't her _home_ anymore.

I wake up with the sun, stuff some clothes into a duffle bag, lock the front door and walk to the bus station.

It's a straight shot. What should be a two hour drive north takes half a day with all the stops.

The line where civilization ends and old-time country life begins is fuzzy.

I get off at his exit, pausing for just a moment as I step off the bus. I'm not sure I'm ready for my feet to touch the dirt of this town.

The two miles of country road that lead to his house seems longer than it ever did when this place was my home.

I walk past Bella's parents' house, still out of place after all these years. Still sparkling and clean and bright, cars in the garage, flowers tended. And it hurts to keep my eyes open. Stucco and daffodils and everything that they represent.

The dirt driveway leading to my father's place is eerily the same as it was so many years ago. I stand on the small front porch, staring at the weathered, splintered wood under my shoes. The screen door creaks as I open it, the mesh limp on the frame, hanging like flesh on tired bones.

The blue paint of the door is blistered from the heat of too many summers. With one hand on the brass door knocker, I can't bring myself to lift it. To announce my presence in this graveyard that was once my house.

But it's no longer up to me as the heavy door swings open.

It's not my father standing there. It's not a man at all. A portly, elderly woman with a plain face stands in front of my father's blue door.

"Who are _you_?"

She smiles back at me, motioning for me to come in. "Edward, I presume." My feet refuse to move.

"Where's my dad?"

"He's not here."

Of course he's not.

She's old. Too old to be his girlfriend. I think. Maybe he's old now.

She leaves me there on the porch, disappearing silently into the hallway. Being here, if only on the front steps, makes me thirsty. My fingers twitch and I can feel my mind playing deceitful tricks. One drink, one pill, one _anything_.

I run my hands over my face and try to rub the traitorous want away. It lingers, but doesn't suffocate me.

I take a few steps into the house and pretend like I'm being brave for doing so. I stare at the stranger as she starts pulling blankets and towels from the linen closet and stuffing them into a black garbage bag.

"Who are you? Why are you here?" I'm being rude, but so is she. I want her to leave. To get out of here. What the fuck is she even doing here?

"I'm from the church." She says it like it's supposed to mean something to me. The people here and their blind faith. "Your father said you'd be arriving this morning. I was expecting you earlier. I'm to pack up anything you don't want to keep."

I'm overcome by an irrational urge to scream at her to get the fuck out. "Doesn't he want to keep _anything_?"

She ignores my question. I watch her pull the green and white knit blanket from the top shelf. She holds it out to me. "This looks like it might contain some memories," she smiles.

It doesn't. I don't know where it came from or who made it. All I know is that it's been here forever. I take it from her wrinkled hands.

"Don't touch anything else."

Her mouth sits in a soft line as she folds her hands in front of her.

"Where is he?" _What have you done with him?_

She fidgets with the cross around her neck. "He asked me to take you to him."

_The fuck?_

"We can go whenever you like." But I can see it in her face, hear it in her tone. She doesn't want to take me anywhere.

I'm tempted to tell her we should just go now, but I need a minute in this house.

A frame containing my high school graduation photo hangs in the hallway. Next to another frame with a wedding photo. I press my thumb over my own face and stare at Bella. I miss her smile. I miss her skin. I miss her hair. I _miss_ her.

She's looking at me, the younger me, with adoration and blind love because she believed all of my lies back then. I'm glad she isn't looking at the photographer because I don't think I could handle those eyes in this moment.

The entire length of the hall is lined with photographs, and with the exception of a small, black and white photo of my parents when they were teenagers, every single one has me in it. It's like a shrine to a life that isn't mine and never was.

I'm having one of those moments where I think the whole world might be different than I thought it was. Where I question every perception I've ever had.

I leave the lady in the hallway with her garbage bag and make my way to the kitchen. It's filthy. Disgusting.

I pause with my hand on the refrigerator door to stare at the frame made of popsicle sticks. _Happy Father's Day_. It contains another photo, another one of _me_, minus my two front teeth.

To an outsider, I would appear to be the prodigal son. The boy he adores and is proud of. It's disheartening and strange.

I open the refrigerator only to slam it closed, the rancid smell burning my nose.

He's done more than simply lose the house. With the state of this place, he appears to have lost his will to live.

The thought lingers. It might not be an unfamiliar feeling.

I jump at the sound of the stranger's voice. "I can take you to him now, if you'd like."

Take me to him. Like he's the fucking king.

"I'll wait for him to come back. You can go."

Her eyes turn to a sympathetic grey. "I think you'll be waiting for a while."

"I don't mind." Another lie. "I mean, I'd rather just wait."

"Suit yourself. I'll be back tomorrow." And before I can tell her not to bother, she's gone.

I walk back to the other side of the house, ignoring the black garbage bag and the open linen closet.

The hallway is dark, like I remember it. I kick off my shoes and walk the rest of the way to my old room with my eyes closed. I push the door open slowly, the wood sliding over the carpet, the only noise in the quiet.

I open my eyes slowly, afraid of what I'll see. But it's still my room.

The blinds are closed, the twin bed made, the pink, pink carpet brighter than it is everywhere else.

My fingers run along the bedside table, catching the dust. This room looks like it's been closed up for years, possibly for every day that I've been gone. It's as if he hasn't once stepped foot in here. He plastered my face all over the rest of this house, like posters for a missing child, but my room stayed untouched. I don't understand him. I've _never_ understood him.

I close the room back up and peek into his bedroom. The bed is stripped down to the mattress. Maybe he doesn't sleep here. Maybe he hasn't in a while.

I start to feel like I'm drowning, like I've been treading water for too long and it would just be easier to let the current pull me under. My hands go to my pockets out of habit. Nearly empty fucking pockets filled with trembling hands. I search for it. I press it into my palm, but I don't dare take it out. I don't dare look at it. Knowing it is there needs to be enough.

I unlock the sliding glass door in his bedroom that leads to the massive back porch. The door catches in the track, stiff from lack of use.

The air is uncharacteristically warm for this early in the spring. It's sticky and thick and it's possible that it's been just long enough that I don't remember it.

Clusters of planter boxes and pots sit along the side of the house, each one of them filled with death. The pool is drained and cracked. Tall weeds growing up towards the clear sky. This whole place is like an abandoned carcass, moments before the vultures descend.

That's when I see her. Bella. My _take me home and never leave me_.

She's standing on the back deck of her parents' house watering the flowers, completely oblivious to my presence.

It's the first time I have seen her since the front door was left wide open. Since we both said words that _ruin_. Since I closed my eyes on the floor of the dining room and prayed that I'd never wake up. I stopped doing the math a year ago.

I don't know where else I expected her to be. Until this moment, I refused to imagine her here. In the springtime.

My first instinct is to duck. To hide. But I don't want to hide from her. That's a lie. I want to, but I refuse. Not now. Not after everything.

And then she sees me and she freezes, like she sees a ghost. Or the devil.

She doesn't look away. Neither of us do.

I stand on the porch with my hands resting on the grey wood of the railing. There are so many things I want to tell her. I want to shout to her. To tell her everything. She wouldn't be able to hear me. She wouldn't want to. I don't feel like I even have the right to say her name out loud.

I don't move. I refuse. She's the one to slowly turn and walk away. Walk _farther_ away. She locks herself up in that sore thumb of a house.

I spend the evening packing up my room and trying to focus on the task at hand. It seems wrong to leave the rest of the house to be picked over, but if he doesn't want any of his things, why should I? It's just stuff. Junk.

I leave the floral curtains up in the living room even though I want nothing more than to pull them down.

He doesn't come home.

I pull a stack of blankets from the linen closet and pile them over myself on the couch. They smell musty. They smell like growing up.

I toss and turn all night. Instead of worrying about my father, I'm preoccupied with thoughts of Bella. She is so close. And yet infinitely far.

I wonder if she lies awake at night. If she's awake now. I hope she isn't.

She has always been strong. I hope I didn't take that. Steal it from her.

I get up with the sun, change my clothes, brush my teeth, and try to remember why I came here.

I'm so angry at him for doing this. For asking me to come. For waiting so long. For not being here himself. For losing the house.

For being a drunk.

I sit on the front porch, waiting for the stranger. An hour later, an old Buick turns on to Old Ox Road, traveling at a snail's pace. She pulls into the driveway this time instead of parking around the back.

The car is quite possibly as old as she is. I climb into the passenger seat without a word.

"Ready?"

I can only nod. She doesn't tell me where we're going and I don't ask.

More than once, I question whether she should be behind the wheel. She doesn't seem to think that the laws of traffic apply to her. That may have more to do with the mentality of this place rather than her age. She takes all of the back roads, heading into town. I watch the scenery pass by and try not to think about where we could possibly be going.

When we pull into a parking lot, the dread sits like lead in my stomach. It's some type of medical center, but not a hospital.

She doesn't wait for me. I watch her walk through the double doors like she comes here regularly.

When I get the courage to walk through them myself, she's nowhere to be found. The woman at the front desk points down a long hallway. She doesn't even ask me who I am or who I'm here to see.

The place smells like spoiled food and formaldehyde.

Behind a closed door, I can hear a man shouting. It is otherwise eerily quiet.

I see the stranger standing in a doorway at the end of the white hall. My feet slow down with each step, but eventually I reach her. She ducks inside before I can ask her where we are.

I stand against the cold, metal doorframe trying to take in the scene in front of me. There lies my father. Machines beep and hum all around him. His eyes are closed, he has too much skin, and his hair lies flat against his forehead.

It is difficult to reconcile him with the man I remember.

The stranger motions towards the empty chair next to his bed. I sit.

I watch his eyes start to flutter until they open halfway. "You're here." This is what death sounds like.

He tries to reach for me but his arm is too weak, falling back down to the pale sheets.

I don't let myself think. I take his hand in both of mine and ignore how foreign it feels. "I'm here." I hold that frail hand. As he closes his eyes, there is almost a smile on his face.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I whisper.

His breathing is heavy through parted lips. It is the only answer he is capable of giving.

I turn to the stranger, accusing her. "How long has he been here, like this?"

"Oh he's been here for some time, but like this? Just a few days."

He wasn't drunk when he called me. Or maybe he was. Maybe he's drunk now. I wouldn't be surprised to find a bottle stashed somewhere in this room. Although I'm sure they have him on much better drugs. I'm sure the morphine runs through his body and his will for anything else.

"What's... wrong with him?"

She looks at me, but doesn't answer right away. "He's _dying_." She says it like it's the only explanation needed and maybe it is.

I watch her sit down in a chair on the other side of his bed. Her familiarity and ease make me irrationally annoyed.

"Who are you? Why are you here?"

"Nobody should die alone, Edward." It's not a pointed remark but it jabs all the same.

"How long does he have?"

"It could be anytime. Only God knows when his time will come."

Her mention of God makes me want to pick a fight. I push it down. If the existence of God brings her comfort, I have no right to try and take that away. I have no right to take anything from anyone.

"He probably wants nothing more than a hard drink right now."

"That man hasn't had a drink in years, Edward."

I try to swallow it down. That reality. The way she says it, I believe her. She has no reason to lie. But I don't know what to do with that truth.

She pulls Rosary beads out of her black leather handbag. I'm mesmerized by her whispered words that aren't loud enough to hear and her arthritic hands as they move along the chain.

I don't know what to feel.

I watch him sleeping in that bed, barely alive, barely anything.

_What have I done?_

I pull my hands away, laying his hand to rest on the cold sheets.

We stay the day. I watch him sleep. We leave before he wakes up.

She drives me back to the house, and I'm probably imagining it but I swear she slows down as she passes the Swan residence.

She pulls into the driveway of my father's house but doesn't cut the engine. "I'll be back tomorrow morning." She pats my hand, giving me a sympathetic smile.

"Thank you." The words fall from my lips as she pulls out of the driveway.

I walk around back, past the deck, past the swing set, until I reach the old willow stump. I can't even be mad at him for this. Not today. I stand on the rotten wood that no longer leeches the water from the ground.

My hand in my pocket, I leave my eyes closed, pressing it as hard as I can into my palm.

It's no longer enough.

My father is dying. I have my childhood boxed up in cardboard. With nowhere to go and nobody to share it with. No car. No family. No Bella.

No Bella.

I keep my feet firmly planted on the tree stump. The sun is disappearing behind the Swan house. The sunset makes everything too real.

My chest heaves up and down, stealing my calm. There's not enough air, enough noise, enough _anything_.

It's being back in this place. Seeing my father as he lets himself die. Seeing Bella for the first time since she left. Seeing her _here _in the country.

I pull my fist from my pocket. I want to press _it_ into my palm until it is embedded in my flesh. _Forever_.

There are too many things I can't have.

I can feel the roaring scream in my fingertips. I feel it everywhere. By the time I try to stop it, it's too late.

Flocks of birds take flight, their wings beating together, taking them away. I wish they would take me with them.

My voice touches everything. With my eyes clenched shut, I can _see _all of the words I never said, pouring out of my mouth in a biting scream. All of the air from my lungs rushes out, permission or not.

My eyes shoot open the second it stops. I half expect to see a different time, a different world. As if I could scream _this_ life away.

With one final shout, I fist my wedding ring in my palm, every muscle in my arm tensing up. I throw it, as hard as I can, into the prickly star thistle.

My lungs burning bright, chest still heaving, I stare at that perfect house.

_Hear me. Hear me, without any words. Please._

_Bella._

_Please._

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N:**

**Susan and Kim, you both deserve medals for dealing with me and this chapter. Thank you for your honesty and for still loving me, even when I'm a bratty baby.**

**CC, I love your brain. Thanks for letting me poke around whenever I want.**

**Everyone who is reading, thanks for trusting me with this story and the way I decided to tell it! No, but really.**

**Happy 4th of July to those who celebrate. Be safe!**


	4. The Duck

CHAPTER FOUR: THE DUCK

_The Country_

_Before_

* * *

Today, I am not a boy or a man.

I am eighteen, a number that is supposed to mean freedom. I am no longer anyone's child, or maybe I never was. I don't feel like an adult. Probably because I still sleep in a twin bed.

My stomach is twisted in knots even before I open my eyes. I leave them closed for an extra minute. My mouth tastes like death and I have to take a piss. My head is surprisingly clear.

I promised myself I would get out of this place, but I don't know how to do that or where to go. It all seems too impossible. Bella talks about college and her future like it's real and certain. I want to be a part of it, but I can't tag along with the girl who lives next door. I don't think it works that way. I am not her boyfriend or her reason.

I lie in the bed that is too small for me, in the room with yellow walls. She is _my_ reason to get up in the morning, and most of the time it doesn't matter that I'm not hers. Wanting her, being next to her, watching her smile is enough.

I bury my face in my pillow and try to picture that smile. The way she tucks her hair behind her ear. The way her fingers play with the branches of the willow tree. The way she laughs until she almost cries.

I drag myself out of bed before my alarm goes off. I hate that noise.

My dad wasn't home last night when I took the fifth of tequila to my room. I'm not even sure if he's home now. I grab the half-full bottle from my nightstand and stash it under my pillow.

My arms and legs feel slow and heavier than they should as I head to the bathroom to shower.

The water takes forever to heat up. I'm so fucking thirsty, I could drink it straight from the tap, but we're on well water. Not even my dad drinks well water.

I step under the spray before it's even warm enough and jack off to thoughts of Bella's lips and her skin and her shiny, perfect hair. I wonder what she'd think of me if she knew.

I pull on some old jeans, scrounge up a lighter, and walk in bare feet out to the back deck. The wood is already starting to warm under my toes. The sun makes everything bright and almost new.

Bella's house shows no signs of life. I wonder if she's up yet. I wonder if she's still in her pajamas, what she sleeps in, if she's naked right now. I stop myself before I need another shower.

I light a cigarette and watch it burn for a few seconds. The first drag is always the best. The rest is just hanging on and chasing something invisible.

I'm tempted to skip school and sit out here on the deck all day, but I want to see her. So I toss my cigarette butt in the planter box filled with sand.

The doors of this house are never locked. I go in through the sliding glass door to the kitchen. It looks almost clean in here: dishes in the dishwasher, counters wiped down.

There is an envelope sitting on the counter with my name scrawled across the front of it. I sneer at it, but I can't help the way my heart beats faster and lighter, or the way my lips turn up in a half smile. He's been known to forget.

I turn it over in my hands. It's sealed up tight. I pick at the corner of the blue paper, ripping the edge just a little. I don't know what I'm expecting, but I'm afraid to open it. I bend it in half and slide it into the back pocket of my jeans.

Bella and I have an unspoken routine. I start walking to school and she picks me up somewhere along the way. She tells me not to walk in the street and I ruin her floor mats with my shoes. We don't talk at school, but her mornings and afternoons are mine.

Sometimes we stop by the feed and grain store after school and hang out with Emmett. This time of year, they have nesting boxes with chicks and ducklings out front. Bella is obsessed with them. She wants to take one of the fluffy things home but her parents would never allow it.

Sometimes we sit on the hay bales in the back barn while Emmett lifts bags of grain and carries things out to people's cars. I listen to her talk about college, about moving to the city. I've never known anyone who is so ambitious, so sure about the unknown. I say she's naive. She calls me a cynic. I'm not even really sure what that means.

This morning, there are no clouds in the sky, cars in the road or birds in the wind. The sun is already hot on my neck, and it feels like summer even though it's not yet. I don't know what will happen when we no longer have school and I no longer have an excuse to snatch her up.

The horses on the Bradley farm always stare when I walk by. They make me nervous. On the days when I stare back, their eyes almost look human, and it's too much to think about. Today, I try to ignore them completely.

There is a flock of crows that sit in the old oak at the edge of their property. Sometimes they scream and shout when I pass and sometimes they are silent and still. I run my fingers along the trunk of the tree, one side covered in thick moss, the other side dry like a crocodile.

The birds are quiet today. I'm glad I don't know what makes the difference.

I usually have time for a quick smoke before Bella catches up to me. Cigarette in hand, my lighter is sputtering. It's fucking empty.

As I'm about to throw it to the ground, the birds simultaneously take flight. There is nothing in the world like the sounds of a whole flock of wings in motion. It sounds like going deaf. It sounds like a heartbeat from the inside. It sounds like losing everything.

I stare at the black birds against the blue sky as they change direction. I wonder how they know where to go.

I need a fucking cigarette. I walk along the quiet, windy road, wandering farther and farther into the street.

Bella's Mercedes pulls up beside me just before I reach the section of pavement that always floods, and I swear that car fucking purrs. Bella's face makes me forget how much I need a smoke.

She doesn't know it's my birthday. Nobody does. It's not like I'm going to make some big announcement or throw myself a birthday party. I've had exactly three parties at my house and they were all more trouble than they were worth.

I lost my virginity at one of those parties, to a girl who I've known since we were toddlers. We were both wasted. I can barely remember what it felt like to be inside another human being. I haven't spoken to her since. I can't even look her in the eye when I pass her in the hall.

"What's wrong?" Bella asks as I climb in.

"Nothing."

She doesn't like that answer, but she doesn't push it.

I tap my fingers against the dash, my heart jumpy and my legs restless.

"Would you just smoke the damn thing already?"

My fingers stop tapping and my mind starts racing. "I told you, I quit."

"And I told _you_ not to lie to me."

"I wasn't."

She laughs, but I can tell she's mad. "Do you think I'm stupid?"

"No." _I think you're perfect._

"Then smoke your cigarette."

"No."

"Then get out of my car."

I can't tell if she's serious, until the car comes to a complete stop. She won't look at me. She presses the automatic unlock and stares straight ahead at the empty road, her face expressionless.

And so I get out of the fucking car and slam the door that's so expensive it doesn't even slam properly. She's speeding off before I can even begin to understand what just happened.

I pull my pack of cigarettes from my pocket and throw it in the dirt. The card from my father lies there next to it, bent and ugly.

I start walking. I can hear the crows behind me, picking at what's mine. And I have never hated anything more than those fucking birds.

I stomp back to that spot as the birds attack my cigarettes. They don't scatter until I'm reaching for the envelope, snatching it back. My fingers rip the blue paper carelessly, letting it fall back down to the ground.

I try to flatten the card out, but it won't stop curling in on itself. It's one of those sentimental father-son cards with too many words. None of it is true. I open the card before reading it all, just to see if he remembered to sign it.

Inside lies a bowed, but crisp one hundred dollar bill. I turn it over. I don't think I've ever held one before. I stuff it in my pocket before the wind snatches it. I pull it back out to examine it and just to be sure. _One hundred dollars_.

With the money safely back in my pocket, I blink at the words written in the card.

_Happy Birthday Son_

I don't know what he's trying to pull.

I walk slowly towards school, kicking every rock in my path, like a child would do. I need a fucking cigarette. The corner market is always open. More often than not, I can get someone to buy me a pack. I'm finally old enough to buy my own cigarettes and I can't even do that because I don't have a proper ID.

I catch Mrs. Parkes on her way in with a grocery cart, and the day just got a little better. She sings in the church choir, has a thousand kids and she'll buy me anything I want for a few extra bucks. I hold out my hundred dollars and her eyes go wide. "How many packs do you want, exactly?"

Bella's scowling face blinks back at me for a split second. I should be asking for some of that Nicorette gum. "Two packs and a lighter," I tell her.

She doesn't ask me what brand because she knows, but she still stares at the money.

"I didn't steal it."

"It's none of my business what you do," she stammers.

I watch her disappear into the market, and for a split second I worry that she might spend it all. But she's one of those church going citizens who I don't want to become. She'll bring me my change. Regardless, I need to get my license. I should find out about driving classes.

Cigarettes and a fresh red lighter in hand, I'm late for first period. I don't bother going. I sit behind the main building with my back against the wall until an entire pack is gone and I am nicotine incarnate.

Bella is mad at me over fucking cigarettes. Does she have any idea the kinds of things people do behind closed doors in this town?

I'd quit. For her. I will quit. I'll quit tomorrow.

We don't usually talk at school. She's my ride home, my next door neighbor. I don't know how to tell the girl who doesn't date that I want her to be mine.

I've lost track of how many bells have rung. I have no idea what time it is. I want nothing more than for this day to be over.

The main hall is filled with students and backpacks.

She's sitting on the floor in front of my locker, the last place I expected her to be. I want to pin her to that spot and tell her I'm sorry, with everything I have. I want to stick my tongue down her throat. I want to peel off her clothes and fuck her against my locker so everyone knows that she belongs to me.

I do none of those things. I wish I could just walk right past her and be different than how I am. I stand frozen in front of her, without any words.

She looks up at me with those eyes. "You didn't tell me it was your birthday."

"Yeah, well, it's not a big deal."

"It's your _birthday_. Look, I'm sorry about this morning. I'm not your mom." Thank God for that.

She rubs her hands over her eyes. She looks so soft. "If you're going to smoke, Edward, then smoke. Just don't _lie_ to me."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't do it again."

"I won't."

I hold my hand out to her and she takes it but lets go as soon as she's standing. I want to grab it back.

The rest of the day passes in slow minutes. Emmett says he wants to have people over this weekend for a belated birthday thing. He has this huge barn where his parents let him do whatever and whoever he wants.

Bella drops me off after school with the promise that she'll be back. Emmett is at work, my dad is God knows where and I have nothing to do but make myself a drink and have a smoke. Then I brush my teeth until my gums are raw.

I sit out on the deck with my feet in the pool, my jeans rolled up to my knees. I lie back on the warm wood and it isn't until Bella is shaking me awake that I realize I've fallen asleep. My vision is cloudy and my skin is too hot. I can barely see her face with the sun behind it.

I pull my wrinkled feet from the pool and unroll my pant legs. I try to rub the fog from my eyes, before standing up next to her.

She's grinning from ear to ear, hiding something in her hands. She opens them slowly, and I can only stare.

"Where did you get that?" I ask, even though I know.

"Where do you think?" She smiles the words.

"You _stole_ a duck."

"I didn't steal it! Emmett let me have her."

Fucking Emmett.

"It's just a baby one. Can we keep it here?"

_We_.

"You're insane."

She scowls at me. "Are you saying no?"

Like I could ever say no to her.

She holds the tiny thing out to me and before I can object, I'm holding it in the palms of my hands. And I swear I can feel its heart beating. It's tiny and fluffy and impossibly alive.

"When she's big enough, she could live in the dog run." This is the stupidest idea I have ever heard.

With her hands in two delicate fists, Bella holds her thumbs up against her bottom lip. "Please?" she nearly begs.

Damn it.

"Fine. Alright."

She jumps at me, wrapping both of her arms around me and I think we're kind of, almost hugging.

"Careful, careful!" The words spill from my mouth before I realize how stupid they are. She immediately lets go, curling her hands up to her face again.

"Sorry, baby duck." She takes the little thing back from me and I almost wish she hadn't.

She leads me back out to her car where she has her very own nesting box in the back seat with the full set up, a heat lamp and everything. I peer into the box and there is another fucking duckling curled up in the corner.

Bella is holding the first one in her hands, tucked under her chin. Her eyes and her lips tell me that she knows exactly what she's doing.

"You have _two_ ducks," I say in the most even voice I can manage.

"_We_ have two ducks. I thought she'd be cold and all alone, so I got her a friend."

I roll my eyes, but I'm too weak to say no. Together we carry the wooden box with the two ducklings into the small room off the kitchen. Bella gets them situated with their food and water while I stand there like a helpless idiot.

"How do you know all this? I mean how do you know what they need?"

"I asked the people at the store," she responds, as if it was the dumbest question.

Within minutes, the two little ducks are snuggled up together, fast asleep. I can't look away.

Bella pulls on one of the belt loops of my jeans and it's the sexiest fucking thing of my entire life. "Come on," she nods towards the sliding glass door.

I follow her wordlessly outside. Everything is warm and orange and buzzing.

We sit out in the willow until it's dark. She tells me stories about growing up in the suburbs and I tell her about log splitters, the horses on the Bradley farm with their crazy eyes, and an old coyote that used to hunt on her property before there was a house there.

And then we just sit and listen to the night. This birthday is better than any other. Better than when I'm left to my own devices.

Sometimes she just stares at me and she looks like she's about to say something but she doesn't.

She swings her dangling, bare legs back and forth. "I should probably get home."

"I'll walk you to the fence."

The stars are out, the air still warm. It's quiet and loud. There are too many things I want to say.

Bella's fingertips run across the top of the grass that is just starting to turn from green to yellow. I wonder what her hands would feel like on my bare skin.

She looks up into the black sky. "The weather is so sexy tonight."

I laugh without meaning to. "Weather can't be sexy."

"Why not?" she asks with the widest smile.

"It just can't. Weather is not sexy." _You_ _are sexy. Your hair is sexy. Your lips and the way you fucking smile is sexy._

She twirls around in the grass, laughing at nothing and everything. Her skirt spins around with her. I want to keep her right here. I don't want to watch her climb back over that fence.

She stops abruptly, eying me like she always does when she wants to ask me something. "What's your favorite day?"

"What?"

"Your favorite day ever." Her skinny arms flail dramatically through the air. I can't help but smile. My favorite day ever is when she wears a tank top and a skirt.

"I don't have one."

And she's somehow holding my hand. "You have to." Her own smile is gone. Her fingers don't stop moving against my own.

"Fine, this one," I whisper.

"It can't be," she whispers back, before taking my other hand, wrapping her fingers around mine.

"Why not?"

"Because it can't!"

Her eyes are all big and shining and Bella. I want to give her a favorite day. I try to find one. I close my eyes.

It seems like entire minutes have passed, and I can't come up with anything that won't make me sound pathetic.

I leave my eyes closed and concentrate on the feeling of her fingers. She smells like springtime and girl. And maybe the tiniest bit like baby ducks. The thought makes me smile again and I can't remember ever feeling this happy about nothing at all.

And then I can feel her breath on my face and I don't dare open my eyes. It's like the world is spinning too quickly, or maybe it has stopped all together.

Her lips are right there and as much as I want to swallow her whole, I don't move. I don't fucking move. Until there is the slightest pressure, her lips against mine, and there is nothing that could keep me from kissing her back.

It's soft and quiet, and just lips on lips. It only lasts seconds, when I want it to last until the day I die.

I blink twice, in shock that she actually kissed me. "Why did you do that?" I whisper against her face.

She holds her fingers up to her own lips and the look in her eyes tells me that she doesn't know. "I think I wanted to."

I hold her hands tighter. "Do it again."

"No," she smiles back.

"Please?"

Her eyes go fierce. "Quit smoking."

"Done."

"Don't lie to me."

"I won't. I'm not."

She gives me a quick peck on the lips, and before I can grab ahold of her she's running across the star thistle, swinging her legs over the white fence that didn't used to be there.

She stands up on one of the thick fence posts, cupping her hands over her mouth. Her hair twists in the breeze as she shouts, "Happy birthday, Edward!" as loud as she possibly can. I can't help but laugh. I watch her as she jumps down.

She doesn't turn around again before she closes herself up in her beautiful, perfect house.

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N:**

**Susan betas and sometimes calls me a drama queen (only when I deserve it).**

**Kim prereads and never calls me a drama queen (because she knows I would cry).**

**CC gives me things like sexy weather (I'm a thief). **

**Thanks for loving on this story. I know it's not the easiest read and I'm glad you're here!**

**Two stories I wish you were reading with me: Hold Me Down by peristew and Stubborn Love by VampiresHavebeagles. Please?**

**Chapter five will be up within the week :)**


	5. The House

CHAPTER FIVE: THE HOUSE

_The Town_

_Before_

* * *

I am a married man. I have a shit job and a shit car and the prettiest wife. She still blushes when I call her my wife, even though that's what she is. She's a wife and she's mine.

Our apartment is within walking distance of downtown. It's small, even for two people, but it's all we can afford right now. I cringe every time we pay the rent. It's the only apartment building around.

The rest of the street is built up with houses from the twenties, thirties and forties. Most of them have been remodeled and polished clean. What were once summer cottages for people who lived in the city, are now overpriced family homes in one of the most desirable neighborhoods around. If it wasn't for Bella's job, we'd move somewhere cheaper. Somewhere we could afford to buy a house.

The bedroom in our apartment shares a wall with the neighboring apartment. An elderly couple lives there, and Bella swears that they can hear us having sex. The man and his wife always stare me down like I'm a thief. I don't give a fuck what they can hear.

On Sundays, we walk to breakfast at the little diner on the edge of downtown that only accepts cash. I get an omelette, Bella orders the Benedict and we devour every last crumb. Every Sunday.

With our full bellies, the walk home takes twice as long. I tuck her into my side as we walk even though the summer sun is too hot for us to be skin to skin.

I never knew being married could be like this. Like walking home on a Sunday in the sunshine and not wanting anything else.

She leans into me, and other than getting her naked, I think this is my favorite thing. The fact that we can just walk and be silent together.

Almost everything here is brown in the summer. Dry and dead and brown. In some ways, it's just like the country except for the pace and the noise and the restaurants with food worth eating.

We turn up our street that doesn't have sidewalks. With my hand dangling over her shoulder, Bella plays with my fingers as we walk. And if she would let me get her naked right now, I would. Right here in the street.

She stops to pick a bright orange poppy. The flowers grow wild here, on every surface, rampant even in the summer when most everything has dried up.

She twirls it in her fingers, around and around, until I have to take it from her and tuck it behind her ear.

Her hands slip into my back pockets as she reaches up on her tiptoes, and it's moments like these, with a flower tucked behind her ear, that it doesn't seem possible that she's all mine.

"We should drive out to the beach today," she says into my lips.

I don't like sand or saltwater or strangers ogling my wife. "It's already almost noon. By the time we pack up and get out there the day will be gone." I kiss along the softest skin of her neck. She smells like Sunday. "Let's just go home."

She laughs against my chest and I can't believe she married me.

She doesn't bring up the beach again. She knows I'll go if she pushes the subject.

We walk along the crunchy gravel. She pokes me in the ribs; I grab her around the waist. She asks me about my favorite day, I tell her about this one birthday I had when the prettiest girl kissed me and then ran off over the fence.

"Now you're mine forever, and I can kiss you anytime I want."

She spins out of my arms, daring me with her eyes to chase her. Walking backwards with a wicked grin, she knows I will.

She nearly trips over an _Open House_ sign. Her eyes follow the arrow down the long driveway and I can see it in her posture before she even speaks. The house is set back from the street and barely visible from where we're standing. She wants to go inside and so we will. Because when it comes to Bella, I don't have a fucking backbone.

She leads me down the driveway. It's lined on either side with overgrown ivy. I can only imagine the rodents that must live in there.

A trellis, grayed by time and age and covered in thick, twisting brown vines serves as the front entryway. I'm not sure if the vines are dead or alive. The house itself is brown and dull as the summer. The paint is thick and peeling away in several spots. There are visible cracks along the side of the house leading to the front door.

But Bella doesn't see any of that. She only sees the _For Sale_ sign and possibilities. It's what I love about her. That fire in her eyes when she wants something.

"The soil shouldn't be flush up against the siding like that," I can't help but think aloud. "This place is probably crawling with termites."

She ignores me, pulling me by the hand. We're through the front door before I have another second to be critical.

The real estate agent is nowhere to be found. The place is completely empty. It smells like moldy air freshener. The walls have all been freshly painted, bone white.

We walk from room to room and I can practically feel the excitement radiating off of Bella's skin every time she touches me.

The kitchen is almost entirely original, yellow tile with black trim, the color rubbed completely off in some places. Bella stands at the huge farm style sink peering out the window overlooking the front walk. It's nothing to look at, but she's smiling like it's everything she's ever wanted.

The carpet throughout the downstairs is beat to hell. And it smells like old people. Bella disappears up the stairs as I examine the peeling wallpaper in the dining room. I wonder who died here.

A blonde with an obvious boob job walks in from the door to the backyard. "Let me know if you have any questions. Feel free to look around. It's priced to sell," she says with the craziest grin. She should practice in the mirror. She looks like a fool.

Bella appears at my side and addresses the agent eagerly, "Have you had much interest?"

"Not a lot of foot traffic today, but I'm sure it will sell quickly. Everything in this neighborhood does." But even she recognizes the lie. It's right there in her eyes. Everything in this neighborhood is picture perfect, magazine model home. Those are the kinds of houses that people in this area buy. People who live here don't want to fix up a junker.

"Come see the upstairs," Bella grins at me. But maybe I don't want to see the upstairs. She pulls at my fingertips, her earnest eyes searching mine. Her face falls ever so slightly and it's like my heart is about to fail in my chest with the realization that I did that.

"Show me."

She is beaming as she pulls me by the hand. The stairs creak and the banister is wobbly. This house is a money pit.

She's practically giddy as she leads me to a bedroom to the left of the stairs. The floors are old hardwood instead of filthy carpet like the rest of this place.

The patchy light shines in through the old oak in the driveway. I can see why she loves it.

"Isn't it romantic?" She is practically begging me to agree. I try to see what she sees but I'm not sure if I could ever see the world through her eyes.

She holds her hands under her chin like she used to do when we were young and stupid. "You have to see the bathroom," she laughs, leading the way to the little bathroom off the corner of the room.

I look around the small space wondering what makes it so special. The cabinets are all painted a pale yellow and the paint is so thick it almost looks squishy.

The tub is old and not particularly clean. It looks original. The floor is covered in small white tiles with the filthiest grout I have ever seen.

Bella stands in front of the toilet staring expectantly at a cabinet on the wall.

"What?"

"Open it!" she squeals. And _this_ is normally what I love about her. Except I feel like I'm about to disappoint her. Like I'm about to show her that I can't give her everything she's ever wanted. We can't afford a house. Not even _this_ house.

I stare at the little cabinet wondering what could possibly be behind it that has her so excited.

I pull the door open too quickly and something comes falling out. I jump and she laughs, until we're both laughing. It's an ironing board. A small ironing board that fits in the wall and I want to give this to her. I want to give her a house with an old ironing board that hides in a cabinet.

I'm so caught off guard by these moments where I can feel myself loving her more than I did the day before. Loving her so much that I don't want to ever deny her anything.

I tangle our fingers together. She reaches for me, pulling my face to hers, whispering her hopes and dreams against my lips. "Can't you see us growing old here?"

"In this bathroom?"

She smiles against my face. "No. Not in this bathroom." She leads me back into the room, the sun catching in her hair as she presses me against the far wall, her lips along my jaw.

"Right here," she whispers.

Eyes closed, I try to see it. Growing old.

She pulls away, her lips leaving my face, but before I can protest, she's wrapped around me again in the middle of the room.

"And right here," she says against my mouth. I let my hands wander and roam as her smiling kisses press and beg me for things I want to give her.

I wonder if I'll ever stop needing her; ever stop wanting to strip her naked in inappropriate places.

"This is where our bed would go," she goads me. And the words are my undoing. That's all it takes for me to be pressing her to the floor in the very spot our bed would be, my lips devouring hers, my hips holding her down.

She doesn't protest, kissing me back like I am to her what she is to me.

"Let's go home," I beg her.

"Imagine what you could do to me right now if this was our home."

I groan into her neck. "You're not playing fair."

"I know. Is it working?"

"Maybe," I tell her honestly, blinking at her begging eyes.

"I can't wait for our first night in this bedroom, Edward."

"You're killing me."

"Say yes."

"Let me get you naked."

"Say yes and I'll let you do anything you want."

"So that's it? Love at first sight?" I ask her. Because I need to understand.

"I fall fast and hard, Edward. You should know this about me."

"I'm pretty sure that was me, Bella. You, on the other hand, needed some convincing."

"That's not how I remember it," she smiles, shaking her head.

"No?" I sweep the hair out of her eyes.

"No. I remember a boy with a cigarette and a smile. I wanted to keep him forever."

"Well, you have him. Minus the cigarette."

"Thankfully," she says, giving me one last peck on the lips.

"Come on, let's go."

"Go where?"

"Let's go see about finding our own realtor."

She smiles her Bella smile. I help her to her feet, glancing around the room that she wants to be ours.

She pauses at the top of the stairs, peering into the smaller room. "It's tiny but a perfect baby's room, don't you think?"

My entire body goes rigid. "You said you didn't want kids." It's practically a whisper.

She looks at me like I'm crazy. "Well not in high school, I didn't!"

I watch her walk down the stairs, sudden dread spreading in my stomach. She pauses half way down when she realizes I'm not behind her. "You coming?" she smiles, oblivious to the thoughts running through my mind.

I force my feet to move. To follow her. I watch her in silence as she asks a few last questions of the realtor with the big tits. I pretend like the past two minutes didn't happen. I don't want to be a father. Ever.

I take Bella's hand, needing the feeling of her skin on mine. She leads me down the front walk. She is so brightly lit right now. I don't want to do or say anything to take it away.

Stopping in the middle of the driveway, she looks up at the bluest sky. I keep walking until our arms are stretched out as far as they can reach.

She looks at me like she loves me and the gnawing feeling in my gut slowly fades.

"Dance with me?" she asks. As if I could say no.

My feet don't move as I hold my arm up high. She does that thing where she twirls around and the whole world spins with her.

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N:**

**Susan,_ thank you_ just never seems to cover it.**

**Kim, I love how you love this Edward.**

**CC and Peri, your endless support means more than you know. **

******I plan on updating weekly from this point on. See you next Monday and thanks for reading :)**


	6. Blood

CHAPTER SIX: BLOOD

_The Town _

_After_

* * *

I am her friend. I am still a liar. We have never been friends.

With creaky stairs, peeling wallpaper and a bedroom across the hall that will never be what she wished for, this empty house echoes and haunts with the life we once shared.

She lives here again. In this town. I don't know where, exactly, because she hasn't told me. I haven't asked because I'm afraid she'll refuse to say. So I pretend like it doesn't matter.

Every time I leave this house, I wonder if I'll run into her at the gas station, or the grocery store, or the ATM. I never do. She might as well live a million miles away.

The world is too quiet except for the days she calls and I can listen to her voice. Everything is different on those days.

We've spoken on the phone eleven times since the night she showed up out of nowhere and drove me home. Eleven is so many, and yet not nearly enough. I thought I had ruined everything after what happened the day my father died. But I guess I can't destroy something that has already shattered to pieces.

We are doing this on her terms, whatever _this_ is. When I asked if I could call her, she said no. When I asked if I could see her, she said no. So I wait for her weekly call.

She usually calls on Saturdays. Sometimes our conversations are easy. Most of the time, I don't know what to say to her that hasn't already been said.

I lie awake in the early hours of the morning when everything is gray. I imagine her here in our house, the version of it where everything is fixed and beautiful and just how she wanted it. I imagine her naked skin and her tangled hair and the way she used to look at me right before she came undone.

I run my hand over the empty space next to me and try to hold on to our past. I can't let go. Not even to spare my own sanity.

I spend the morning in the dining room, fighting with layers of wallpaper.

It's Saturday. But it's almost noon and I haven't heard from Bella. Alice's shift starts soon and I told her I'd be there. She's not the one I'm afraid to disappoint.

I've been stripping the wallpaper in the dining room for two days. The stuff doesn't want to leave. I wish I could remember what color Bella had wanted to paint the walls.

I'm already running late when the house phone rings in the kitchen. And even though I don't know who is calling, I _know_ and it's my favorite sound.

"Hello?" I practically shout into the receiver, entirely pathetic and out of breath.

She laughs. I have a new favorite sound. I want to ask her what is so funny, but my lips are nothing but the biggest, stupid smile. _Laugh forever. Please._

"Hi."

"Hi."

I swear we say it one hundred times.

"So what are you up to?" She sounds as breathless as I feel.

I want to tell her, but it feels strange. Because it's what she wanted and what I never gave her when we were married.

Honesty is complicated and unfair.

"Just doing some work around the house." Partial truths are partial lies. "I'm taking down the wallpaper in the dining room." I hold my breath.

"Oh." It's all she says. She gives me nothing else. So I keep talking.

"I thought it would come down easily since it was already peeling, but I swear they must have used super glue or something." I'm starting to ramble.

There is an awkward silence and I want to fill it. With anything. Before she starts asking me things I don't know how to answer.

"Why are you taking down the wallpaper?" I'm too late. There is no longer any hint of laughter in her voice. She sounds almost hurt.

Because I'm an asshole.

"Do you remember what you told me that first day you drove me home when we were kids?" That's what we were. _Kids_.

"I don't know if I can do this with you, Edward."

"What are we doing?" Because I honestly don't know.

"Reminiscing."

I don't know what to talk about. I don't know what's allowed. We are both too quiet.

"What do you want, Bella?" I hold the phone in a tight fist, anticipating her response.

Say_ everything._

She answers a different question. "I told you that I loved old houses because I always wanted to peel the wallpaper back to see what was underneath." I imagine her smiling when she says it. I can hear it and feel and see it. I swear I can fucking _see_ it.

My heart sputters, remembering a different time, a different us. A time when the prospect of _us_ was a long shot.

"Are you going to tell me what's underneath?" she asks, her curiosity getting the best of her. And maybe she's still the Bella I married. Maybe I didn't ruin her.

"More wallpaper," I tell her, the smile evident in my voice.

She laughs and I wish I could see her face. I wish I could show her. I bet her eyes would shine.

I glance up at the yellow kitchen clock and I'm late. "Bella, I hate to do this, but I really have to go."

"Oh, okay. Yeah, me too." She is back to sounding different than I remember her. "Goodbye, Edward."

I don't want to say it back. I don't want to.

"Are you still there?" she asks, her voice blanketed in insecurity.

"Yeah, sorry. I'll talk to you soon?"

Now she is the one who is quiet. She doesn't want to promise me anything. I know her. I did once.

"Have a good day, Edward."

"Yeah. Yeah, you too."

I wait for her to hang up. When I hear the click, I pray that it won't be the last time.

I keep replaying our conversation in my head as I walk as fast as I possibly can to the coffee shop. I let myself smile. I probably look like a fool but I don't care. It feels good to smile.

Wren is waiting for me when I get there. She has a stupid smile of her own and a filthy face.

"You're late," she scolds me, trying to pout but failing miserably as she passes me a bag of blueberry scones. Her eyes give her away. Her voice makes me laugh. She sounds like a smoker. A five-year-old smoker.

"I'm sorry. I had a very important phone call. You ready?"

She jumps off her stool and takes my hand. "Where are we going today?"

"Where do you want to go?"

"The zoo!"

We both laugh. "Where do you want to go _besides_ the zoo?"

"The park?"

"Deal."

Alice barely acknowledges me, giving me a wave from behind the till. Wren doesn't look back.

It bothers me that Wren is so trusting. It's also comforting. I feel like she sees me in a way that nobody ever has and she doesn't hate me. Not even close.

She tugs on my arm. Apparently, I'm not walking fast enough. "I didn't even tell you which park."

"I know which one!" she shouts, laughing as she runs ahead of me. Her world is so simple. She is oblivious to the dysfunction that surrounds her.

"What if I wanted to take you to a different park?" I tease.

She stops, turning around. With her hands on her hips, she studies my face. "You don't have a car."

She is too smart. And too honest.

I lean down until we are nose to nose. "You got me."

She places her little hands on either side of my face, like she did the first time she saw me. Something inside of me pinches and aches. And I don't think it's simply because of the circumstances she was born into.

She presses her lips together into a satisfied smirk. I want to ask her what the hell is all over her face. "What did you have for breakfast?"

She points to the bag of scones, confused. "I didn't have breakfast yet."

Does her mother ever bathe her? I attempt to wipe out the pink smudges with my thumb as she squirms away from me.

"Edward?"

My entire body goes rigid at the sound of her voice. I don't turn around. I can't. I wanted this. I wanted to see her. But I'm not prepared. I feel like a corpse.

A pair of little hands hold on to me. "Who are _you_?" Wren scowls at Bella as she peers around my legs.

"_Edward_?" she asks again, her voice laced with something I can't identify.

And when I turn to face her she is staring with the widest eyes. She is offensively beautiful. More beautiful than I remembered.

"Bella, this is Wren," I explain without explaining.

She looks back and forth between the two of us, all of the color drained from her cheeks.

And I can see it. Her feet running over an open field of star thistle. Her legs climbing over a white fence. Her hair whipping in the wind.

Her tear stained cheeks. Her pounding fists. Her hand on the front door.

"Bella..."

"I have to go," she barely whispers, her eyes settling on Wren. I know what she's thinking. I think I know. I am unforgivable. What I did is too much for one person to forgive.

She leaves us there, in front of the dry cleaner. She disappears around the corner and it takes everything I have not to run after her. To grab hold of her and force her to speak.

We stand there in silence, Wren and I. She has seen enough in her young life to know when to be quiet. That's not fair to her.

So I take her to the park. I said I would. I will not be a liar today. I give her a nice Saturday. I spend the afternoon in the sun with a little girl who wants nothing more than a father who adores her. She deserves so much and is happy with so little.

The week passes slowly. On Tuesday, I spend no fewer than two hours at the hardware store trying to pick out a paint color for the dining room. I never paid enough attention to what Bella wanted. I can't ask her now. It's too late. She would laugh at me. She'd ask if I was crazy. I'd tell her the truth, that I am. That I've lost my mind several times over. That I am trying to fix the house she will never again live in.

I see Wren again on Thursday. We get ice cream at the old-fashioned soda shop and she ends up with it all over everything. Like she's never had ice cream before.

She asks about Bella. And so I tell her. I do not lie. I tell her as much as I think is appropriate for a five-year-old. I'm operating blind. Sometimes when I'm talking to her, I forget that she's a child. That she has only existed for five years. The earth has only traveled around the sun five times since the day she was born.

It's only when she says something entirely too honest that I remember her age. She tells me I am ugly when I frown. She tells me that I need a haircut or a hairbrush. _She is one to talk_. She tells me I look better when I don't shave, that I have wrinkles by my eyes when I smile and that I drink too much coffee.

Wren and I walk through the trees on the way back to Alice's work, and I watch her chase the crows among the shadows. I watch her and think about Bella.

The crows flock to an old oak, screaming at each other as a five-year-old menace tries to scale the trunk. I give her a lift onto one of the lower branches. She scrapes her knee against the crocodile bark but doesn't cry. She's tough.

I keep both feet on the ground. I feel like a grown-up.

Standing at the foot of the tree, it's the first time that I feel like I might be okay. Because even though Bella doesn't love me or trust me or want me, there is still air to breathe and blood to bleed. Crows to chase and trees to climb.

There are still people who _deserve_. The world keeps spinning. I don't know if I can keep looking back. I am tired of not being enough.

And when Wren asks to be carried as I help her down from the old oak, I only pause for a moment. She falls asleep with her ice cream face on my shoulder and her scrawny arms and legs dangling. Pink cheeks and wild hair.

Alice is waiting for us out front of the coffee shop when we get back, arms folded, apron thrown over her shoulder. She doesn't complain that we're late. She doesn't say anything.

She puts a lot of trust in a man she hardly knows. Desperation has a way of clouding one's judgment.

I follow her wordlessly to her car and get Wren situated in the back seat. She clings to my shirt as I try to figure out the seat belt.

"I have the late shift tomorrow," Alice says over my shoulder.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Wren. Time to go home."

She blinks at me. "Promise?"

"I Promise." I promise her more than I have ever promised anyone.

"Cross your heart and hope to die?" she asks as her eyes flutter closed.

_Yeah, kid, cross my heart._

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N:**

**HUGE thanks to Time Lights for the gorgeous banner she made for Honest Liar. I'm in awe of her talent and I'm in LOVE with the banner. Like crazy in love. You can check it out at imagebam (dot com) (slash) image (slash) 8edc3d201690737**

**Susan and Kim made everything in this chapter better, as usual. They are too good to me.**

**I stole _offensively beautiful_ from CC.**

**Honest Liar is up for fic of the week over at The Lemonade Stand along with a couple of my favs. Go vote for your top five at tehlemonadestand. net**

**I'd love to hear your thoughts on Wren. See you next Monday :)**


	7. He Dies

CHAPTER SEVEN: HE DIES

_The Country_

_After_

* * *

I am a man with nothing left to lose. I feel numb, like I'm plied with liquor and pills.

The sun is too bright in the sky and my mind is too sharp for what has just happened.

I spin my wedding ring around my pinky finger in my pocket. The hours I spent searching for it in the star thistle last night were completely and pathetically worth it.

With my other hand in a tight fist, I knock twice, three times, with such force that it burns. I don't stop. I can't. The fire in my knuckles spreads up my hand in sharp jolts with each knock. Each one telling me that I shouldn't be here, that I should go. But I can't fucking _stop_.

The door swings open and it's not who I want. Who I _need_.

She is startled by my presence. On her front porch next to a pot of daffodils.

She reaches her hand out towards me, as if I might be a ghost. But she stops, remembering her manners.

Shifting from foot to foot, I force the words out. "Is Bella home?"

She doesn't answer right away. Her eyes study mine. Her expression is confused, but it's the pity that suffocates me. She doesn't look at me the way I expected her to. The way a mother should look at a man who did what I did to her daughter. Maybe it's because she doesn't know. Maybe she's a liar too.

"I'm afraid she's out."

I squeeze my eyes shut, because I don't know what else to do. "I shouldn't have come here."

"Edward..."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Swan."

I turn away from her as she shakes her head. I walk the stone path that leads back to the street, careful not to disturb any of her flowers.

I can feel her eyes on me.

I walk until the dirt under my feet is familiar. I stand by the tall pine in the front yard, the one I always wanted to cover in Christmas lights when I was a boy, and stare at the house.

I don't want to go in there. I walk around the side and up the stairs of the back deck that spans the entire length of this house. I wonder who built it. How many trees these boards came from. What a fucking waste.

There is a spongy, rotten spot near the railing. Each time I pass over it as I pace the upper tier of the deck, I hope that I fall through.

Staring out into the field, I press on the soft spot with the toe of my shoe.

A vulture sits on the fence post, wings spread wide.

When I was a kid, deer used to come here to die. I don't know why. I don't know why anything would want to die _here_.

It might be a deer out there now. Or maybe the nasty bird has simply made this place its home.

My father would see the vultures out there on the fence posts, warming their wings, and he'd go cursing through the tall grass with a shotgun to put the dying animal out of its misery. At least that's what I told myself then. Years later I found out that he needed to know the exact location of the carcass before it was nothing but bones, scattered by coyotes. That way, he could collect the bones before they got caught up in his riding mower.

Black, black wings. The beast is staring me down. Even from here, it's menacing.

I want to scream at the top of my lungs _I don't care what died out there_. _You can have me too._

This feeling, this ache, I want to smash it away. Swallow it. I want to fucking _swallow_ it.

I throw the heavy sliding glass door to the kitchen wide open, shaking the house's frame. I rifle through the cabinets, contents falling to the counter, to the ground, to dust.

Until I find it.

There are a hundred screaming voices telling me to listen, to stop, to remember who I am now. But there is one voice screaming louder than the rest. Sneering that this is _exactly_ who I am.

My back against the kitchen cabinets, I sink down to the gritty floor. The scratched, yellowed hardwood isn't as cold as I want it... _need_ it to be.

I unscrew the lid, pressing it into the palm of my hand. I hold the bottle of amber sin in the other, inches from my lips. It smells so fucking good. The voice is screaming, begging, pleading. _Fly away. Swallow it down. Suck it dry._

I let the mouth of the bottle rest on my lips, the slightest hint of tequila on my tongue. And it's done. It's already fucking done.

I tilt it up. Just enough. To feel the scream in my throat. One sip. One fucking sip. _Swallow it. Do it. It's in your blood. _

I do it. I swallow it down. Like the fucking coward I am. I feel the scream. I can feel it hit my stomach. The coat and burn that is so familiar and foreign.

But it's the wrong kind of scream. And all I can see is the blue-eyed man and eyes that won't close.

And now I'm really screaming. Shouting him away.

Bottle in one hand, I crawl over the dirty floor to the sink. I pull myself up, fingers resting in the rough grout of the tile, forcing myself to stand. On two feet.

I hold the bottle over the drain. I tilt it just enough for the contents to begin to drip. And then I lift it, rage in my lungs, high up into the air.

Spinning around, I throw it with everything I have. I swear I can almost hear it, hurtling through the air, flying like a bird into a window pane.

It hits the glass door with a shattering smack. It's piercing for only a second before the silence settles in. And then the glass of the door starts to crack and pop. Like little land mines exploding. It's almost comforting.

The alcohol seeps along the floor, amidst the grime and shards of glass.

For the longest time I can only stare at it.

I should walk away right now. Walk to the bus station and leave forever. Leave those boxes of memories and get the fuck out of here.

But I can't.

In the pantry, I find the plastic bucket and orange sponge that my dad used to use to wash his truck. And I clean up the mess.

I clean up every last shattered piece, cutting my fingers in the process.

And then I scrub the floor. Until it shines. Until the sun is low in the sky, bright orange fire. And the vulture has disappeared from its post.

That's when I see her. Standing at the fence line. The wind tangling itself up in her hair.

I want to go to her. I want her to come to me. I want to turn back time.

I can see the indecision in her posture. And then the rational part of her loses as she swings her legs over the white, white fence.

She hugs her arms around her chest as she makes her way through the grass.

I watch her survey the land, the house, raking her eyes over all of it. This is the closest I've been to her in over a year. And yet it's not close enough.

I'm not sure if she assumes I've seen her or if she's praying that I haven't. But _she_ came _here_.

I look away for just a moment. To catch my breath. And when I look back, she's sitting on the old tree stump of the willow tree. Our willow tree. What used to be, anyway.

The tangled roots still sit in the ground, spread all over this land. The only reason it remains is because my father didn't believe in paying anyone to do anything for him. To do anything he could do himself. Even if only in theory. And so the stump sits, roots rotting in the soil.

I stand in the window and watch her. Until I'm sure she's seen me. Until there is no doubt.

And then I'm no longer in the house at all.

I take the stairs of the back deck slowly. I push against the old swing set as I pass it, the swing catching the tall grass. I give her every chance to see me coming.

The weather has turned in the span of a day, the air cold and biting.

I don't know what I'm going to say to her or how I'm going to look at her or if she'll even let me.

I stop when I'm close enough to hear her, to see her, but not to touch her.

She picks at the smooth wood of the old tree stump and I wish she'd say something. I wish she'd be the one.

Her hair flits around in the wind. I want to grab a strand and wrap it around my finger. I want to tell her everything. I want her to forgive me. I _want_, but I have nothing to give.

"Bella, it's freezing out here." Those are the first words I say to her. Out loud.

She doesn't answer, but she looks at me. The way her mother looked at me this morning. I wish she'd stop. But I'll take what I can get.

"Edward, are you okay?" And her voice makes me want to get closer.

"Edward?"

I wrack my brain for the question. _Are you okay?_

"No." Because it's true.

"Edward..."

But I don't want her pity. "You look good, Bella."

She appraises me for a moment. I know exactly what she's doing. She's trying to see it. To see what I hid from her for so long. Her voice is calm and unforgiving. "Edward, you look... tired."

I am so much more than tired. "You moved back here."

She acknowledges me with a nod, the words too strong to speak. I want to ask her if she got my letter all those months ago, but I'm too much of a coward to hear the answer.

"What are you doing out here?" I ask instead.

She shrugs. "I don't know." I lose her eyes. "I've been coming here sometimes."

"To do what?"

I get them back. "To think. To sit on a tree stump and remember."

To remember.

I want to touch her. To hold her hand. I never held her hand enough.

She hugs herself tighter, tucking her hands into her sleeves for warmth.

"Bella, do you want to go inside?"

"Edward..."

We keep saying each other's names. Like we're trying to remind each other who we are. Or maybe who we _were_.

"Bella, please." I reach my hand out to her but she doesn't take it. She scoots off of the tree stump and I want to grab her and beg her not to walk away.

I don't touch her. I don't dare.

It's nearly impossible to keep my hands at my sides as she walks past me. But she's not walking away. She's walking towards the house. She doesn't turn around to see if I'm behind her.

She doesn't hesitate before walking up the back steps. She opens the door and disappears into the dark kitchen.

I find her in the living room, running her fingers over a picture frame.

I don't want to watch her remember.

I start a fire in the old wood-burning stove that does a terrible job of heating more than this room. We sit in front of it, on the pink carpet, warming our hands. And not speaking.

For several minutes the only noise in the room is the crackling, spitting wood. I leave the door to the small stove slightly open to get the fire going, the way my father taught me.

I watch her hands, as she rubs them together in front of the orange glow of flames.

And now I watch her face. I watch her lashes and I can't help but remember the way they feel against my cheek. The way they feel under my lips.

She worries her lip for minutes before speaking. "I heard your dad isn't doing well. Edward, I'm so sorry."

That's why she's here.

"He died."

"_What_?" she asks, her voice a harsh whisper.

"I said he died. Today. He died today."

"_Edward_..." She reaches for me, her fingertips barely touching my skin. The lightest touch of those familiar hands is almost too much to bear. I want to grab her and hold her to me. More than that, I want her to hold me back.

I reach for her other hand and she lets me.

I hold her tight as she tries to let go. I hold her tight until I remember that I shouldn't, that I can't, that she's no longer mine. Letting go of her feels like dying.

But she's still holding on. Her fingers are still curled around mine. I chance a peek at her face, and she's staring too. At our hands that are touching and holding on. I can see the battle in her features. And then I can see the decision being made. I look away from her face before it destroys me.

I watch her hands as they slowly release me. But she's not letting go at all, as her fingers trace up my arms and her eyes settle on mine.

The sob in my chest and the tears on my face barely register over the touch of her hands.

"Shh." I can feel her breath on my face. She smells like everything I want.

And my touches are not featherlight. My hands grip her hips. I don't know if I'm pulling her to me or if she is the one crawling into my lap.

Her thumbs brush the tears away. Stupid fucking tears for a man who doesn't deserve them.

Is that what I am to her also? Am I a man who doesn't _deserve_?

I'm afraid to breathe as she presses her forehead to mine. As she wraps her legs around me and holds on to me like I'm the man she loves.

I remember her kisses. The best kisses. The _only_ kisses.

I want to steal them. All of them. Just one.

She's so close, I may not even have to be a thief. But I'm too afraid that she's going to pull away. I'm too afraid that this second will be the very last.

Before she has another second to think, to run away, I kiss her lips. Just once. I kiss her soft and gentle. I kiss those lips that used to make everything better.

They still do.

I don't move and she doesn't pull away. Our lips are still touching, just barely. Until they aren't anymore.

And it's torture. Because one kiss isn't enough. I need more. I need to _take_. To swallow her whole.

_Tell me to stop. Tell me it's okay. _With our lips so close, so very, very close, I'm going to take one more. Just one. And I'm at the point where it doesn't matter if she's letting me because of pity. I don't care.

Before I can take what I want, she's kissing me. _She_ is the one who is deepening the kiss. Needing _me_. Opening her mouth and giving me what I want but don't deserve.

For one fleeting moment, she is kissing me with everything she has. Until she pulls her lips from my lips and my hands from her hips, quick and violent, like she's just realized what is happening. Like she's just remembered how much she hates me. I open my eyes to a look of utter disgust and betrayal on her face. For a second, I think she's going to hit me.

"You've been drinking." The way her lip curls up and her shining eyes accuse me of something that is almost true.

"No. I..."

"Don't fucking lie to me. I can _taste_ it."

Lie, lie, lie.

"I took a sip. One sip. Bella... _please_." My voice isn't even there. My mouth says the words that she won't hear. "Please, please, please."

I reach for her, grabbing hold of her arm. But she jerks it away.

She's standing up, walking away from me. She's leaving.

I let her the last time. I _let her_.

I run after her, slamming my hands on the front door before she can open it. Caging her in.

Her expression shifting to one of fear as her chin quivers. "I can't. I can't do this. Not anymore."

"Please don't leave. Bella, _please_."

Her eyes close.

My lips hover over her face. "I won't touch you."

Her words fall from cracked lips. "You're touching me now, Edward. You're touching me now."

I back away immediately, hands in the air. Surrendering.

"I won't. I'll stop. I promise." And as much as it hurts to promise, I mean it. I'll do it.

_Don't leave me._ _Stay_.

She turns away from me, her hand on the door knob. I stand motionless as she slowly opens the door, as she pushes the old screen door open, and steps over the threshold, onto the dead front porch.

She doesn't look back.

I fall to my knees, my fingertips to my lips. The front door wide open.

This time she _runs_.

* * *

**-HL-**


	8. The Girl I Kiss

CHAPTER EIGHT: THE GIRL I KISS

_The Country_

_Before_

* * *

I am everything she wants. At least that's what it feels like when she's standing in front of me with her lips against mine.

It's been two weeks since she kissed me. That's a lie. It's been three hours since she kissed me. It's been two weeks since she kissed me the first time. Since my birthday.

I had convinced myself it was a pity kiss, or a birthday kiss. A one-time thing. But I was wrong. She lets me kiss her in her car, and behind school, and in the willow tree.

My last class of the day is study hall. I skip it because I can't sit in that classroom and do nothing for nearly an hour. They don't let you sleep in study hall and I don't know what else I'm supposed to do there.

The wind howls through the trees as I walk to Bella's car. I have fifty minutes to kill.

I sit on the hood of her Mercedes, waiting for her. I don't start walking home after school anymore. Not when we can sit in her car in the parking lot and make out for half an hour before driving home. Walking is for suckers.

The stupid crows jump from tree to tree, screaming and shouting about nothing. Maybe they hate the wind as much as I do. I wish Bella would hurry up.

I have a lighter and a half empty pack of cigarettes in one pocket, a pack of gum in the other. I rest my hand over the one with the cigarettes. But she'll taste them on my tongue and she won't let me kiss her if I've been smoking. So I go for the gum. I chew two pieces, as if two is somehow better than one.

I watch for her, desperation taking hold of me, even though I just saw her a few hours ago. Even though she let me kiss her for nearly our entire lunch break, my knuckles raw from holding the back of her head as I pressed her against the brick wall behind the main building.

When the last bell finally rings, I wait anxiously as everyone pours out of the school. There is no sign of Bella.

I'm agitated that she isn't next to me, that she isn't touching me. And then I see her, laughing, her hair in her face and an arm draped over her shoulder. My very own walking, breathing nightmare.

I want to kill him. I want to rip that fucking arm off of his body and shove it down his throat.

I spit my gum in the bushes and scrutinize her face. I want to know if she looks at him the way she looks at me.

I remember what she said about him. _He's not my boyfriend. _Is he the boy she kisses? Are we the same?

She looks indifferent, or bored. This is what I tell myself. But he looks smug. The little fucker looks like he thinks she belongs to him.

She catches my eye, her smile falling as she stares. She looks confused and then almost angry. As if I'm the one with a girl draped all over me. It's probably because I'm sitting on her fucking car and she hates that.

I jump to my feet and look away. Because I cannot stand the sight of him touching her. And if I look at him any longer, I'm going to bash his face in. First with my fist and then with that metal He-Man lunch box he used to carry around when we were in kindergarten.

With my back to them, I grip the door handle to Bella's car like it's going to save my life. I wish she'd unlock the doors so I could hide inside her shiny car. I can hear her keys jangling behind me, but she doesn't unlock the doors.

I listen to her say goodbye to him and I hope he gets hit by a truck.

I avoid eye contact as she walks around to the driver's side of the car, focusing on the angry crows in the trees. I can see her out of the corner of my eye, staring me down. Waiting for something.

"Hey."

I ignore her. Anything I say right now will be terrible.

"Edward," she presses, as if I didn't hear her the first time.

I exhale once before I surrender and turn to face her. There is fire in her eyes as she glares at me over the roof of her car.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Are you my girlfriend?" I ask stupidly.

Her face up to the sky, she laughs. She fucking laughs. She's so beautiful when she does it, I want to scream. I feel like my ribcage is splitting down the middle and the contents of my chest are spilling all over the asphalt.

"_Edward_." It almost sounds like she's scolding me.

"Forget it."

She unlocks the door and I'm inside, caging myself in before she can say another word. She stands next to the car for too long before opening the door and throwing her backpack into the back seat.

She sits beside me, on expensive leather and I want to say a millions things that she won't like.

"Why do you have to do that?" she scowls at me.

"Do what?"

"Ruin everything."

I want to tell her to get used to it. I pull a cigarette from my pocket instead, feeling marginally worse as I hold it, unlit between my lips.

"Light that in my car and you're walking," she threatens. I know she means it and I don't care.

I refuse to look at her. I hold my lighter tight in my hand, my thumb pressing against rough metal, threatening to _really_ ruin. Maybe two weeks is all I get. To feel like I'm deserving of her smile and her words and her lips.

But it's not nearly enough time. I'm too selfish. I tap the tip of my cigarette with my tongue and close my eyes.

Ripping it from my mouth, I throw it out the window. I feel crazy. I feel like I'm losing my mind and I wish she'd make it stop. I keep my eyes closed and press the back of my head against the headrest.

"He's just my friend, Edward."

"Yeah, and apparently so am I," I snap back.

"No."

"Then _what_?"

"You're not _just_ anything, okay?"

"I don't know what that means, Bella."

She throws her head back, blinking at the roof of her car. "It means I don't want you to be just my friend."

I can finally breathe, even though she hasn't really given me anything.

"What _do_ you want, Bella?"

She looks like she's in pain. "I want to kiss you."

Kiss me. Fucking do it.

"I'm afraid of this," she says, motioning between us. She's _afraid_. She makes no sense. She's been doing nothing but kiss me for weeks.

"Close your eyes," she pleads. But I don't want to close my eyes. I want to look at her while I kiss her.

I want her to let me.

We both shift in our seats, facing each other and I don't know why it feels like it's over when it hasn't even started.

We just stare at each other and she looks so sad. Sadder than I've ever seen her. I brush the hair from her eyes and lean in to her. Her lashes flutter against my face and it feels so good, but not as good as kissing her would feel.

"Please don't be afraid of me," I whisper against her cheek.

"You're not the one I'm afraid of."

I don't know what that means.

"Close your eyes," she pleads again.

So I do it. I close my eyes and hold her face in my hands. She smells good enough to bite.

I can feel her lips hovering over mine and I tell myself that if she kisses me, that I'll just kiss her forever. I'll kiss her for the rest of my life in this car because her kisses are all I want.

I'm holding my breath until I'm not anymore. Until she's kissing me.

Her lips are soft against mine and it's like she's telling me things that she won't say with words.

I feel alive.

I want to slip my hands up her shirt, but I just pull at her bottom lip instead. I suck and press and she tastes so good, I feel high. I feel like I'm floating. With my tongue in her mouth, I want to strip her naked. I want to take and grab and make her mine.

Frantic kisses slow down, but I still hold on to her like she might try to slip away. We sit in the school parking lot, forehead to forehead, without speaking. Until she grabs for her keys, starts the ignition and drives us home.

And that's it. I'm pretty sure we're done. Over.

My cigarettes are burning a hole in my pocket the entire drive. I wish she'd say something.

She parks at her house. I want to stomp on her mother's flowers and kick a huge dent in that beautiful gold car.

I face my house in the distance with my fists clenched. "I don't know how to take care of the ducks." It's all I have at this point.

"I know," she assures me, her voice calm. I want to look at her, but I can't. Until she's several steps ahead of me, walking toward that filthy house.

"Aren't you coming?" she asks.

"I thought..."

"What did you think?"

I stare at the incredulous look on her face. "I don't know. I don't know what I thought," I lie.

We walk across the field side by side. She doesn't touch me. I wish she would. Just her hand. I just want one hand.

She walks slightly in front of me as we walk up the steps of the back deck, each board creaking and moaning underneath our feet.

I don't know how she stands so tall when she is so small.

The ducklings aren't small anymore. They make a huge mess during the day when we're at school. Watching her clean up after them is part of our afternoon routine. I watch her fold up all of the soiled newspaper and lay down fresh sheets. I watch her change their water and refill their food. They squawk at her like she's their mother.

"I think they might be big enough to start living outside soon," she smiles, like she's proud that they're growing up.

We take them outside to waddle around in the sunshine and they follow Bella around and around.

And I just watch her. It's almost like before. When we weren't even friends and I would only stare.

I wait for her to catch me and when she does, I don't look away. There is a hunger in her eyes and I tell myself that I am not simply seeing what I want to see.

She's not smiling anymore. Her mouth looks almost tortured, like it's tangled around too many words. She walks towards me, until the toes of her shoes are flush against mine.

"Close your eyes," she begs.

I close them up the second she asks. I leave them closed as the seconds tick past.

I leave them closed as she weaves her fingers into my hair, her fingernails against my scalp. As she leans into me, up on her tip toes. As she buries her face in my neck.

I leave them closed as I wrap my own arms around her. As I run my own lips over her face and her soft, soft skin.

I would willingly be blind forever if she would kiss me right now.

"What are we going to do about this?" she whispers.

She says it like _this_ is a problem. Again, I don't know what she means.

I kiss along her face until I find her mouth. "You're going to kiss me, and I'm going to kiss you." I smile against her lips but she doesn't smile back. Because to her, it's not that simple.

Holding my shirt in her fists, "Edward, who am I to you?"

_You're everything. _"You're just the girl I kiss." Eyes still closed.

"Edward."

Eyes open. "What?"

"You promised not to lie to me."

"I'm not." I am. Of course I am. I _love_ you. One day I'll tell you.

"I have to go home for dinner, but do you want to... come with me?" she asks, nervousness and hope in her voice.

I can't believe she's asking me to have dinner with her parents.

I lie and tell that her my dad wants me home for dinner. She sees the lie but she doesn't ask again.

I can't meet her parents. They will try to take her from me. They will. I've never spoken to either of them, but they won't like the fact that she lets me kiss her. I can tell by the way her mother waters the flowers along their front walk and the way her father always parks his car in the garage.

They will hate everything that I am.

She kisses me on the cheek. On the fucking cheek. And with a _good night_, she's gone. I watch her walk across the field and I feel hollow.

I don't want to go back to the empty, quiet house.

I stand out on the deck with two little ducks behind me. I let them swim in the pool. With my feet in the water, I smoke half a pack. The sun long down, I microwave a frozen dinner and go to sleep.

It's past midnight when the front door slams, shaking the entire house and rattling my bones. I lie still in my bed trying to assess how drunk he is. He doesn't knock anything over as he walks to his room at the end of the hall, his heavy footsteps pounding in my ears. Everything goes quiet. I lie wide awake. I don't know how it's possible to feel lonelier now that I know he is home.

I wait until I'm sure he's passed out before I pull my blankets back and tiptoe to the door. I press my ear against the hollow wood just to make sure. But there's nothing.

The door slides against the carpet as I open it. I stand motionless for a minute before walking slowly down the hall.

He left his bedroom door open. I stand on the one step that leads into his room with the pink wallpaper that matches the carpet. Staring into the dark, I can just make out his sleeping form, face down on top of the blankets. I can see his body rise and fall with each breath.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll find him dead in this very room.

I walk back down the hall, not caring about my footsteps now that I know he's dead to the world. But I don't go back to my room.

The moon is full, lighting the living room, an eerie glow falling over the furniture.

I stand in front of the sliding glass door in the kitchen. It's almost bright out.

And then I see her. Barely dressed. Sitting out on the fence post that separates her parents' property from ours.

My entire body aches for her.

The night is loud here, insects and frogs competing with the sound of the violent wind.

Her white tank top practically glows in the moonlight. She has her arms wrapped around herself, her hair down and wild. My heart beats erratically, worried about her out here in the middle of the night.

I set out across the star thistle, the bastard weed biting at my bare feet as I walk.

She doesn't see me until I'm practically in front of her, her whole body startled by the sight of me. "I thought you were a coyote," she laughs nervously, steadying herself on the fence post.

Sometimes I feel like one. Like I'm trying to hunt her down.

"It's just me."

I stay a foot away, even though I want to wrap her up and squeeze her tight.

I can't help but stare at her chest as she unfolds her arms, picking at the tall grass. And maybe weather _can_ be sexy.

"Are you okay? What are you doing out here? It's the middle of the night."

"I couldn't sleep. I sit out here sometimes." She runs a dried piece of grass between her fingertips, staring at it instead of me.

"In the dark?"

I watch her twirl the grass, something obviously on her mind. "I'm sorry," she says almost too loudly.

"Sorry for what?"

"For today."

"You're sitting out here in the middle of the night because you feel bad that you don't want to be my girlfriend?"

"No." She shakes her head, a frustrated smile spreading across her face. "I refuse to be like them, okay?"

I nod, even though I don't really know who she means.

"My parents _fell in love_ when they were in high school."

She said _love_.

"I can't be like them, Edward. I can't."

I don't know how we could ever be like her parents. I will never own a car as expensive as the one her father drives. I will probably never own a house or go to college. I am not what they are.

"They don't even sleep in the same bed," she groans, her arm covering her eyes like she's embarrassed.

As if she has any idea what it means to be embarrassed by one's parents and what they are.

She doesn't want the two of us to be like the two of them. I can't help but smile at the thought of us in a house with a garage and flowers out front that Bella waters religiously. I know that's not what she means, but it's what I hear. It's what I see. And what I will never be able to have.

She jumps down from the fence post, curling her arms around her chest again. She stands there expectantly and I want to steal her away. I want to kiss her lips raw and fuck her in the tall grass.

I reach my hand out tentatively, afraid of my own thoughts, my own impulses. Fighting against the wind, I brush the hair from her face. I hold that face in my hands and feel her entire body melt into mine. We stand out in the field, with her arms around me and my lips to the top of her head until she starts to sway with sleep.

I pull away, ready to tell her to go to bed, but she holds me against her. "Don't go."

She blinks up at me and she looks so young, so pretty, so innocent. I give her a small nod. Without any words she starts to walk toward _my_ house, leading me by the hand. I am the one who follows her. Up the stairs of the back deck. Through the door to the kitchen. Down the hall. To my bedroom.

I watch her as she kicks off her flip flops and crawls beneath my sheets.

Bella is in my bed.

I think about her parents and their separate beds and how that is the worst part of them.

They will hate _everything_ that I am.

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N:**

**Susan and Kim make it better. I will love them for always. And always.**

**I want to give you all a great big hug.**

**There won't be an update next Monday as I'll be out of town doing incredibly boring things. Instead I'll give you a teaser for Ch 9. If you want the teaser, make sure you're signed in when you review or I won't be able to send a PM. And if you don't want the teaser, just let me know.**

**See you in two weeks :)**


	9. The Bird

CHAPTER NINE: THE BIRD

_The Town_

_After_

* * *

I am a man with regrets. I ache for what was once mine, for all that has been squandered.

It is easier to be angry with Bella than to miss her and need her and wish for her. But I can't be angry.

I will never stop missing my wife.

I miss her infinitely more since the day my father died. Some days I want to erase the memory of her lips pressed to mine, her hands holding on and her voice against my skin. I'm haunted by her touch.

I sit on a high stool at the coffee shop with my newspaper and a blue pen. It's almost like being at a bar, except I won't go home smelling like sin. My hair and my clothes will radiate coffee beans for the rest of the day.

I look at my calloused hands. She used to claim to love these hands, rough against her softest skin. The pen looks awkward in my fingers.

A little girl, holding a plate full of pastries, climbs up next to me. Children make me nervous. They are too honest. And they remind me of what I did. The girl inadvertently pushes her tall stool against mine as she climbs up.

She has little teeth and unruly hair that looks like it hasn't seen a brush in days. I look around, scanning the coffee shop for the girl's mother, but there is no one.

She stares at me, tilting her head to the side. "What's your name?" she asks in her raspy voice.

For whatever reason, I have the strongest urge to tell her, but I don't. "Didn't your father ever tell you that you shouldn't talk to strangers?"

She scowls with her brown, brown eyes and sullen lips. "You're not a stranger. You're here every day," she practically accuses me. I'm not sure how she knows this. I've never noticed her before.

"I'm still a stranger," I promise her.

She holds her pointer finger up to her lower lip and stares at my pen. "No, you wear jeans and clean shoes and you drink a lot, a _lot_ of coffee. You can't be a stranger." Her logic is difficult to argue with.

I focus on my newspaper instead of her innocent face. Maybe she'll get bored and go away. But it's like my brain no longer knows how to read. I blink at the small print, but all I can focus on is the small child to my right.

Half of a blueberry scone appears in the middle of my paper. When I turn to face her, she has the other half stuffed almost entirely in her mouth, crumbs everywhere.

She watches me intently, her eyes wider than should be humanly possible. I take a bite, merely to appease her. With the way she looks at me, it's obvious she sees someone I'm not.

She doesn't ask me any more questions, she simply stares. It's more off-putting than the endless chatter.

I circle a few random job postings, trying my best to ignore her. I think I might be succeeding until a finger pokes me in the arm.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" I sigh, trying to sound exasperated.

She blinks at me several times, and before I can stop her she's reaching up and placing her little hands on either side of my face. I flinch, and immediately regret it.

She studies me intently, her little eyebrows knit together. "Why are you sad?" she asks. With her frown tilted to the side, she looks like she genuinely wants to know.

"I'm not sad." Now I sound defensive. I'm also lying to a child.

She whisper-shouts in her little girl voice, "What are you?"

I am a man who regrets. "I don't know."

"You don't _know_?" she giggles, as she removes her hands from my cheeks. "My name's Wren."

This inexplicably makes me smile. "Like the bird."

She wrinkles her nose and shakes her head. "_No_. Like the girl."

"You shouldn't talk to strangers, Wren."

She ignores me. "How old are you anyway?"

"How old do you think I am?" I ask her.

She studies my face. "Twelve or nineteen." _Twelve or nineteen_. I wouldn't go back to twelve, but nineteen, in a heartbeat.

"How old are _you_?"

She tries to sit up tall. "Five and a quarter." I wonder if I ever counted my age in quarters. I somehow think I didn't.

"Will you be my best friend?" she asks out of nowhere.

"No," I tell her, trying to sound convincing.

"_Why not_?" She puts her hands on her hips and it's almost enough to make me laugh. Almost.

"Because I can't."

"But _why_?"

"Because you should have a best friend who is five and a quarter."

_Because you deserve better._

She doesn't like this answer. I want nothing more than for this child's mother to appear and save me.

I flip through my paper and pull the comics out, laying them out on the counter in front of the girl named after a bird. She places both palms face down on the bright paper, leaning in, her face only a couple inches away.

I go back to the job listings, but I don't really see them.

Sometimes it feels like I'm forgetting Bella's face, or her laugh or the way she sees the world. And sometimes I remember her so clearly that she seems more real than she ever did when she was mine.

I can hear her voice now. She used to tell me all the time that I should get my contractor's license. She said it often, not in a nagging way, but just because she thought I should, and that I _could_. She thought I could be more than a pair of hired hands.

At the time, there was always something holding me back. Now, here I am with nothing, nobody here to tell me I can be more than what I am, and for the first time, I feel like maybe I could. Be more.

I watch the girl out of the corner of my eye as she fidgets on her stool, pulling her legs up under her so that she's up on her knees.

I wonder if Bella and I could have done it. If we could have raised a family. We probably would have fallen to pieces. We fell to pieces regardless.

There is a flash of motion beside me as the little girl's stool tilts back and out from under her. Before I can even think, I'm on my feet, my arms outstretched, holding her an arm's length away.

The stool crashes to the ground, the sound jarring, startling everyone around us. It's a stark reminder that my heart still beats in my chest. That I'm still very much alive.

Her feet dangle in the air. Everyone is staring.

"She's not mine," I tell nobody in particular. They go back to their coffee and their chatter.

But there is one set of the brownest watery eyes staring at me, wide as ever.

_Please don't cry._

A brunette rushes out from behind the counter, wiping her hands on her apron. After righting the stool, she takes the girl from my shaky hands and sets her on her feet.

"I am _so_ sorry," she tells me without looking at me. "I told you not to bother the customers," she scolds.

I feel the strangest urge to defend her. "She wasn't. She wasn't bothering me."

The woman grabs the girl by the wrist, and nearly drags her over to the front counter, lifting her up onto a chair. She tells her things that I cannot hear. The girl stays put.

I pack up my things with an urgency to get out of here. I want to turn around as I push open the glass door, but I don't. I know the girl is staring and I don't know why I care.

It's cold out, feeling more like winter than mid-spring. It is a five minute walk from the coffee shop to my house. I'm sure I would drive it if given the choice.

Sometimes, when I walk up the long driveway, I still forget that she doesn't live here. The wisteria is in full bloom and it's almost suffocating: the smell and the sight of it _everywhere_.

I'm supposed to meet Emmett for dinner at the Puerto Rican restaurant downtown. I hope he doesn't bring the girlfriend. She makes him unbearable. They are always touching and gazing and whispering.

It's a short walk. One that we used to make frequently. The line is out the door when I arrive. Em is leaning up against the green building with _two_ girls.

"Hey, man. Did you walk?"

_No, I fucking flew in my goddamn private jet._

"E, this is Katie."

Of course it is. I have known a lot of Katies. I lost my virginity to one. This is thankfully a different Katie.

This Katie is smiley with big lips. They look almost kissable. The thought is so repulsive, so wrong, so confusing. Then she speaks and I wish she hadn't. Her voice makes me want to go deaf.

She scrunches her nose up at the menu as we stand in line to order. "What's good here?"

"Everything."

"I can't even pronounce any of these things," she whines.

Em and the girlfriend are in their own little world as he nuzzles her neck, and smiles at her like a pussy.

I don't want to be here. That's a lie. I want to be here with someone else. That's a partial truth. I want to be here with Bella.

The line moves quickly. We're surrounded by loud chatter, friends catching up, couples holding hands. And that's who we used to be. I order and pay for my food before anyone gets any ideas. I am not buying Katie's dinner.

I scan the room for a table. She holds her imported beer up. "What are you having to drink?" she asks me in her child voice.

"Water."

"Oh come on, it's Friday night." She orders a second beer.

"I hope you're thirsty," I say over my shoulder.

"It's _Friday_ night." She says it like I'm stupid or seventeen.

I emphasize every word. "I don't drink."

She gives Emmett a look. I'll have to thank him for this later.

Crammed into a small corner table, I'm next to Katie and her two beers.

There are a hundred different bright colors everywhere and music that makes my ears bleed. But Bella loved this place. She always ordered the sweet plantains and a mango iced tea. She insisted on trying everything on the menu and would order a different entree every time. I always order the same thing.

I inhale my food without really tasting it and watch Katie pick at her plate.

I wonder if virgin-Katie still lives in the country. If she's married, has kids, has a house or a crack problem or drinks herself stupid.

This Katie likes to hear herself talk. And she keeps touching me. The kind of touches that are on purpose.

"I have to go," I announce, standing abruptly from my chair, almost knocking it over.

"Hold up, Edward, we'll drive you home," Emmett shouts after me.

I wave him off. I need to walk.

The air is just cold enough that I can see my breath. I walk past the empty lot. I walk and walk and walk until the streets are no longer straight.

The moon is barely visible, leaving the windy streets without sidewalks in near darkness. I'll get smacked by a few wayward tree branches if I don't look where I'm going.

The mistletoe doesn't sit in the oaks here.

A car slows behind me and I have to close my eyes. My entire body feels her, remembers what it was like when she was the prettiest girl and I was just a boy who walked in the street.

My memories are haunted by sounds. The sound of her car slowing behind me. The sound of her giddy laugh. The sound of her body writhing beneath me. The sound of her choking sobs. The sound of my lies. All of them.

The window is already down as the car pulls up.

And maybe I'm crazy now. I try to blink her away. _Bella_.

"You shouldn't walk in the street. I almost hit you." She's not smiling but her _voice_. She's really here. In a car I don't know.

She is so beautiful, even in the dark, that I want to close my eyes again. Her brownest eyes pierce with their honesty.

I stand there. Like an idiot. In the street.

"Do you want a ride?" She is begging me to turn her down. But she is asking what I _want_, and I refuse to lie.

I open the door without answering. She doesn't take her eyes off of me.

We sit in suffocating silence. I don't know what this is but I will take whatever she is giving me.

"Bella, what are you doing here?"

She takes a breath, her teeth worrying her lip. "I don't know." Turning away from me, her eyes wide, like those of a little girl named after a bird, she looks like she's trying to convince herself of something.

I can't look away from her face as she drives. I want to reach over and touch her, run my fingers down her arm, hold her leg just above the knee.

I tangle my hands up in each other, like a pair of vulture claws.

She pulls up in front of the house that used to be ours. I promised her we would fix it up. It was an honest lie. The house looks like it did then. When I thought it was the beginning.

With the car off, neither of us moves to get out. We just sit. In the driveway.

We are two people who no longer have anything to talk about. No more screaming words or begging words or words about forever.

_Love me, forgive me, hold me down, scream it out. See me. Please. See me._

"Are you sober?" she asks, because she doesn't trust her eyes.

"Yes. Since... since the day my father died." _Since the day you ran. _

"I should go." She wants to mean it.

"Will I see you again?" I don't even care that I sound desperate.

She looks straight ahead when she speaks. "Good night, Edward."

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N:**

**Susan betas and tells me to "knock it off" when I need to be told.**

**Kim Pre-reads and she has the prettiest eyes.**

**Happy birthday Jaime!**

**My goal is to have ch 10 up a week from Monday. But no promises. I go back to work tomorrow and I'm about to move, so life is about to swallow me whole. Sometimes I wish life was simple, but most of the time I'm glad it's not.**

**I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter. **


	10. Naked

CHAPTER TEN: NAKED

_The Town_

_Before_

* * *

I am a homeowner. We have a house and a _mortgage_. We will be paying for this place forever. And I don't even care. The look on Bella's face when we unlocked the front door for the first time is worth more than the rest of it.

The living room is piled high with empty boxes.

"Did you ever make forts when you were little?" she asks, peeking out from a pile of cardboard, her hair falling from her ponytail.

I watch her smile. "Yeah," I lie. I have no memory of such things.

Bella hasn't stopped smiling all day. It's this house. It makes her giddy.

I begin carrying all of the boxes labeled _bedroom_ upstairs. The third step is slightly taller than all the rest. I almost trip every time.

The only furniture in our room is a bare mattress on the floor. The frame won't arrive until next week.

I rifle through the boxes until I find our bed sheets. I'm going to get my wife naked in our bed on our first night in our _house_. I plan on keeping her up all night.

I probably should have bought candles or roses or something. She says she doesn't care about that kind of stuff, but I think she might be lying. Girls are supposed to like romance, I'm just not exactly sure what that means.

"Bella!" I shout down the stairs.

"What?"

"Come up here. I made the bed."

She laughs. It's the best laugh, even if it means she's not going to give me what I want.

"I'm not having sex with you until the kitchen is unpacked, Edward."

I take the stairs two at a time. I can unpack boxes.

I watch her from the doorway, her hips swaying to silent music. She has boxes on top of all of the counters, drawers and cupboards wide open.

I start to pull random kitchen things out of one of the smaller boxes.

"You know it will be faster if you just let me do it," she says without turning around. I can hear the smirk in her voice. She knows she's right.

"But I'm _helping_," I explain, wrapping her up in my arms and tucking my chin over her shoulder. I brush her hair to the side and kiss along her neck. She tries her best to ignore me.

My hands won't stay put. I find that sliver of skin between her shirt and her jeans. It's my favorite. She sighs long and low, and for a second I think I might have her.

"You know I love those hands."

"So you claim."

Turning in my arms, she stands up on her tiptoes and pulls me down until we're at eye level. "Go shower. You smell like the gym. I'll be finished in an hour. I promise."

I groan as she turns back towards the boxes, leaving me wanting.

"The longer you stand there loud breathing, the longer this is going to take me."

With one last groan, I head for the stairs.

"Edward?"

"_Bella_."

"I love you more than anything."

"More than the kitchen?"

"Somewhere between the kitchen and the bathroom." And then she laughs and I want to pick her up and carry her up the stairs. Fuck the kitchen.

But I leave her be. Because I can be patient.

The stairs creak and moan with each step. I wonder how long it will take before I memorize their protests.

I turn the shower on and wait for the entire bathroom to be filled with steam.

The little door with the ironing board won't stay closed. I leave it open. It's the perfect spot to hang my clothes anyway.

The tub is one of those old claw foot ones with a shower curtain that goes all the way around. I thought Bella was going to hit me when I suggested we replace it. She says it's her seventh favorite part of this house and she wants to keep it forever.

I just love the way she _loves_.

I stick my head out of the bathroom door. "Bella!"

"What?" she shouts back from downstairs.

"I need your help."

"Right _now_?"

"Right now."

I peel off my socks and step under the spray of the shower, fumbling with the temperature as the water scalds my skin. Bella always tests the temperature first. Sometimes I just think she is better at life than I am. But it's okay, because I have her forever.

As the water begins to heat up, I hear her. "Edward?"

"In here."

I can see her with her hands on her hips through the shower curtain. I wash my hair and try not to laugh. She pulls the curtain back and I can't contain my smile. I can't.

"I thought you needed my _help_," she laughs disapprovingly.

I motion down. "Yeah. I do."

She shakes her head, suddenly shy and blushing. Like she's never seen me naked and turned on before.

"Come _here_," I practically beg.

"No."

"You're wearing too many clothes," I plead.

"I'm wearing just the right amount of clothes for unpacking."

"Well it's time to take a break. It's time to christen the shower, Bella." I try to say it with a straight face.

I reach out and pull at the hem of her shirt. She swats my hand away.

But her _smile_.

"I'm not getting naked with you right now." She's so cute when she's stubborn that I barely hear the words.

I see my chance and I take it, grabbing her while she's still in arm's reach. Her shrieks fill the tiny space. She tries to fight me but her laugh gives her away.

I hold her tight, covering her face in sloppy wet kisses. Until she's no longer protesting. Until she is melting into me.

With one lift, she's over the edge of the tub. We stumble and slip, but find our balance without falling.

Soaking wet and fully clothed, she pushes against my chest. "I hate you."

"You could never hate me." I smile into her neck, holding her close to me under the spray of the water.

My lips drag over her wet face. I love her skin. How she tastes. How she feels. I love her hair. How it gets all wild around her face.

I love her in the shower with all of her clothes on.

"You are so fucking sexy."

"You're a liar."

I suck at the hollow of her neck. Lips and tongue and teeth. "So fucking sexy."

My hands roam her wet body searching for skin.

The sounds she makes. They could ruin a man.

The way her fingertips press into my stubble. The way she demands my mouth on hers. Like she is the one who dragged me in here.

She's still fully clothed, while I'm completely naked. I love it and hate it.

"You are in so much trouble," she smiles, shaking her head.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

I kiss her slowly until her clothes are sloppy wet and we're both drowning.

She pulls on my earlobe as she drags her lips along my jaw.

I help her pull her shirt up and over and let it fall with a smack to the bottom of the tub.

Her nipples pucker underneath her bra, and that needs to come off too. I watch her face as I undo the clasp and pull it from her body. And she knows exactly what she does to me. She has to know.

She's no longer laughing as I lift her into my arms, trying not to lose my balance. Still in her jeans, with her legs around my waist, her tits are at eye level. She has the prettiest tits.

They are so perfect in my hands. So warm and soft.

Her fingers trail through my hair as I take her nipple in my mouth. I kiss and nip, when I want to devour.

She wiggles against my stomach. "Who am I to you, Edward?" she teases.

"You're just the girl I kiss," I tease back.

She leans down, capturing my lips. She's the girl I kiss. And the girl I love. And the girl I married. She likes old houses. And Sunday breakfast. And sex in the morning.

One hand slides down the back of her jeans, grabbing her ass.

I need her naked.

"Bed," she practically grunts against my lips.

"What?"

"Take me to bed," she whispers against my ear, her tongue running along my skin, driving me goddamn insane.

She tries to stand on her own two feet, but I refuse to let go of her. We fumble out of the bathroom, slippery feet on cold tile. We run into anything and everything on the way to the bed. Her mouth is so fucking good. Her _everything _is so fucking good.

"We're soaking wet," she laughs as I lower her onto the sheets.

"I don't care."

She watches me as I unbutton her jeans and slowly peel them from her skin.

I feel like I'm eighteen, like I'm just about to have sex with the prettiest girl and I'm going to lose it before I even get inside of her.

The room is lit with late afternoon sun. She looks so soft. I hover over her naked body without touching her.

Her lashes are heavy, her hair tangled across the sheets. "Kiss me," she begs.

"I don't deserve you," I promise her as I press my lips to hers, as our mouths push and pull. Her tongue is Heaven on earth.

"Do you remember when we first saw this room?" she asks, entirely breathless.

"This is where our bed would go," I tell her, pressing her firmly to the mattress.

She kisses me like she did then, like I am to her what she is to me. She's so convincing, I believe her. I do.

"Imagine what you could do to me right now if this was our home," she taunts, stretching her arms up over her head.

I bury my face in her perfect tits. I am so thankful that I don't have to imagine.

I kiss her bare hip, eyes locked on her honest eyes.

My mouth hovers over where she is aching. Until I've tortured her enough. She looks at me like it's the first time I've ever put my mouth on her.

She doesn't look away. And the sounds she makes. Like I'm all she's ever wanted in the world. I grip her hips, holding her to me. Until she's writhing. All breathless whispers.

I want to tell her that she doesn't have to be quiet in this house.

And she knows. Together in our room, she is anything but quiet.

I need to be inside of her. Or I might die. Right here on these wet sheets.

I stalk over her naked body, holding myself over her as her chest heaves up and down.

Her gentle hands roam over my shoulders, down my chest, lower, lower, lower.

My mouth hovers over hers. We breathe the same air.

Her entire body is covered in goose bumps, the air in the room too cold.

She whispers something against my lips that I can't understand.

I don't have to die today, because she is guiding me to her.

I'm inside of her and it's so much better than anything else could ever be.

I try to go slow. I try to make it good for her.

On a mattress on the floor, on our first afternoon in this falling down house that belongs to us, I make love to my wife.

Her fists grip the sheets. I want her hands. Her eyes flutter closed. I want her to see me.

I want every bit of her.

I take what I want. Our fingers tangled together, I hold on to her with everything I have. "Look at me," I whisper. She doesn't make me beg.

She meets every slow thrust, her warm body rocking beneath me.

That look in her eyes right before she comes undone. It's like she really does sees me. Eyes open and boring into mine, I swear she _sees_ me.

She sees everything. And I let her.

Her eyes are so brown and so impossible. Her cheeks the best pink and her lips perfectly parted.

And even if I couldn't feel her, I'd be able to see her and hear her fall to pieces.

She is breathless and spent. My lips press softly to her throat.

I roll us to our sides, grasping the smooth skin behind her knee. My flat palm slides up her leg greedily.

Having her like this, so completely, I feel ridiculous for ever thinking I was going to destroy her.

Like this, we are perfect.

Chasing my release is like that first drag of a cigarette. I just want to keep it and hold on.

I can't think or breathe or see. I can only move.

I can only take. I can only devour her. I can only drown in how good she is; how good she feels; how good she makes me want to be.

I am so close. So fucking close. I want to feel _this_ forever. This _almost_ feeling.

There are words but I don't know what I'm speaking.

With one final thrust, I'm panting her name and holding her to me as if she could disappear at any moment.

She is everything.

_Everything_.

I grip her hip until I feel like I might shatter her bones. But she holds me just as tight and I'm not breaking.

We lie in our bed, tangled up in each other, until our breathing has evened out. I pull the sheet up and over, cocooning us in.

She pecks at my lips. "Want to know something?"

I blink back at her. A little afraid of who we are. "Always."

"I officially love you more than I love the bathroom," she jokes. I stare at her lips. Her eyes. Her everything. Wondering if maybe she doesn't _feel _with the same intensity that I do.

"But that bathtub is your seventh favorite thing," I try to play along, my voice barely audible.

"I know. You better watch out. Next thing you know, I'll love you more than the dining room." The way she says it, I can't help but laugh.

"Not the _dining room_."

We lie nose to nose and I just can't get enough of her. And the way our kisses sound in an empty room when we're skin to skin.

"_This_ is my favorite thing," I tell her. And I'm being entirely and completely honest.

"Sex can't be your favorite thing," she smiles.

"Why not?" I ask, trailing my fingertips back and forth over her hip.

"Because it _can't_."

"Fine, I wasn't going to say sex anyway."

"Oh, no?"

"No."

I bite her bottom lip gently, pulling at her perfect mouth. Rolling on top of her, I cover her with the weight of my body.

"What's your favorite thing, Edward?" she gasps, as we kiss and kiss and kiss.

"Kissing you naked in our house. I want to kiss you naked in our house forever."

_I want to suffocate in your expectations._

_I want to live in the world as you see it._

_I want to die trying._

I want. I want. I _want._

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N:**

**Barely made it, but I'm pretty sure it's still Monday.**

**Susan takes the girlie words away from Edward. Be very, very thankful for her.**

**Kim gets an award for reading the several drafts of this chapter. **

**CC tells me when I'm holding back.**

**Next update will most likely be in two weeks, but I'll update sooner if I can pull it off :)**


	11. The BlueEyed Man

CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE BLUE-EYED MAN

The Town

After

* * *

I am drowning. I am being held by the ankles, pulled under by something I can't see or touch or name.

Three weeks worth of pills gone in less than two. Five of my seven places are empty.

I hold the cash in my fingers, separating the bills into what I can spend and what I need to take home. To my wife.

I send Bella a quick text.

_I'll be home for dinner._

She sends one back immediately.

_Pick up some French bread on your way?_

I stare at her words. I don't know why something so simple seems like the most overwhelming, impossible task in the world, but it does.

I backtrack up C Street and cross over to Third, making one stop on the way. I pull one last twenty from my pocket.

I spend more than I should. More than I can afford. And when I hold the bag of pills in my hand, I feel a hollow, screaming ache. They will never be enough.

I shove the bag into my pocket. The weight makes my limbs beg and plead. Like I've been treading water for hours. Like I have a pocket full of stones.

I force myself to wait. Thirty seconds. One minute, two minutes, three.

The old bakery makes the entire block smell like bread in the oven. It's too much.

I pay the plump lady with the red nose for a fresh loaf of sourdough and walk out before I suffocate.

There is a hidden lot behind the shop, with nothing but dumpsters and asphalt. I walk through the alley without letting myself think about what I'm doing.

The sun has just disappeared behind the hills, making the sky almost silver. Everything looks cold but is still hot to the touch.

I scrounge through the baggie in my pocket and hold two pills in my fingertips, pressing them so tight that my knuckles scream.

I took one earlier, telling myself it would be enough. Fucking stupid.

I don't look at them. I don't want to see what I am now.

But I do see _him_ as I crush them in my teeth. He stares at me with those blue eyes that pierce. He has a puffy black jacket that is cleaner than the rest of him.

"What the fuck is your problem?" I spit at the blue-eyed man.

He doesn't answer or look away. His ice eyes bore into mine. I swear he doesn't even blink.

He holds his hand out, walking towards me. His yellow hair is so filthy that it looks painted on. I wish he would speak.

He gets closer and closer. I stand my ground. I am not afraid of some middle-aged, homeless junkie.

I stare at his pathetic orange face as he reaches out for the bread in my hand.

_Over my dead body._

Holding the crinkly paper in a tight fist, I practically crush the fresh loaf.

I stare straight into his eyes and for a second, I don't see a monster at all. I just see a man. With nothing.

He's terrifying.

He is close enough that I can smell him. But I'm grateful to have something real that sets us apart.

He is disgusting.

And I refuse to become that man. A man who takes what doesn't belong to him. A man who has nothing left to give.

We are not the same. We will never be the same.

I slowly loosen my grip on the loaf of bread. "Take it," I tell him, contempt on my tongue.

As he holds the bread in one hand, he smiles, his rotten teeth in full view.

"Thank you," he says gruffly, nodding and backing away. Like I might snatch it back from him.

Leaning up against one of the grimy dumpsters, he slides down to the gravel. I turn away just as he begins to pick the hot bread apart. Like a fucking vulture.

I go home to my wife.

I find her in the kitchen, pulling a lasagna out of the oven. The whole house smells like marinara and melted cheese.

She has music blaring, allowing me to sneak in unnoticed. I just watch her. The way her hair hangs down her back. The way she twists it up into a ponytail. The way her body sways.

I love the way she is when she doesn't know anybody is watching her. I don't know why. It's like she carries around this _something_ that I don't know how to name.

Maybe it's just happiness. Maybe it lives in her bones.

I watch her chop the vegetables for a salad and I can tell the exact moment she realizes I'm here. Her hips stop moving with the music. She looks over her shoulder and her smile is the best thing about today.

She only glances at me for a second. She keeps her back to me and it's because she loves when I wrap her up, her back to my chest. She says it makes her feel safe.

I cross the kitchen in seconds because I need that too.

I hold her to me, my lips to her temple. She exhales, long and low. I can feel her smile through her skin.

"When did you get so pretty?"

She laughs at me, but I mean it. I want to know.

She turns in my arms, trailing her hands over my chest. Pressing her lips to mine.

She tastes like all of the best things. And for a moment, she is all that matters. She is my whole world, even if it's only for a second.

"Where's the French bread?" she asks.

_Shit_.

"I forgot. I can go back out."

She searches my eyes. "Forget it. We don't need it." She kisses my face. Once. Twice. "I'm just glad you're home."

As she glances around the kitchen, I can see it in her face. How much she loves this house, this home. But it's not the same for me. It's nothing but wood and drywall and nails. This house is nothing but walls.

My home has always been where she is.

I've been staring too long. "What?" she whispers, mild concern on her face.

"Nothing. I just missed you."

She believes me, because it's true, but her eyes linger again, searching for what I'm hiding. Just for a moment. And then her smile is back and I can breathe.

We eat dinner at the dining room table and I pretend like I'm the man she married.

She keeps smiling at me. Like we're out on a date and she's wondering if I'm going to kiss her at the end of the night.

She just smiles and smiles throughout dinner, but doesn't say anything. And when I smile back she blushes and holds my gaze. It's the strangest conversation.

There is a dot of red sauce at the corner of her mouth. I want to lick it off. I laugh at the thought without meaning to.

"What?" she asks, her grin staying put.

"Nothing," I laugh.

She moves to stand, ready to clear the table, but I stop her. "I'll get it."

She just fucking smiles at me. She almost looks like she might cry. But that can't be right, because she's only happy.

She places her hand on my arm as I reach for her plate. "The dishes can wait."

She leads me up the stairs to our room. I'm not sure what's happening, but I'll take it.

At the foot of our bed, she kisses me. Like it's the last time she's ever going to kiss me. And I can't even bring myself to stop her and ask her what the fuck is going on, because it feels so good. She feels so good. We feel so good together.

Her hands are all over me, before she reaches down and pulls her shirt up and over.

And whatever I wanted to ask her is gone because she has the prettiest tits in the whole wide world. Her bra falls to the floor, leaving her bare skin and her perfect pink nipples in my hands.

"When did you get so pretty?" I ask again, my lips never leaving hers.

"A few weeks ago, I think," she whispers against my mouth.

As she begins to undress me, I lose myself in everything that she is. Until I remember a bag full of pills that I'm not supposed to need anymore.

My hands still. I tell myself to forget about them. But Bella can't find them. She can't.

I try to reach for my pocket slowly, but my hand doesn't understand slow.

And then I freeze. Because there is nothing there. My pocket is empty. It's fucking _empty_.

There is a fleeting moment when I want to accuse Bella of taking them from me, but I know she didn't.

She continues to kiss along my jaw, but all I can see and hear and smell is the blue-eyed man.

He is everywhere. The rage flows into my veins like poison.

"Shit."

My heart is ready to beat out of my chest and throw itself on the floor.

She looks up at me, wide-eyed and confused.

"Edward, what's wrong?"

"I have to go." I think I say it out loud.

"_What_?"

I try not to look at her face. "I will be right back. I _promise_."

"I don't understand what is so important that you have to go right this second." And now she is starting to cry. She is starting to cry and I can't even care because my pocket is empty.

"I told Emmett I'd help him with something. I will be _right_ back."

Her eyes go black. "Emmett went home to see his parents for the weekend."

Fuck.

"I know. I told him I'd go by and take care of something in his garage." I lie, lie, lie.

And she knows. She sees me for who I am.

I watch her look away, shaking her head and refusing to speak. With her shirt in her hands, I stare at her naked back as she walks to the bathroom and slams the door behind her.

I'm down the stairs and out the door before I give myself any time to worry about the consequences of this lie.

She'll forgive me. She has to.

I start running, without the slightest clue as to where I'll find him.

I run until the streets are straight and my lungs burn bright. I end up under the freeway, surrounded by sunflowers that aren't real. There are filthy strangers in every corner. Beds made of cardboard and shopping carts piled high with worthless, plundered possessions.

Some of them shout at me; they all stare.

Panic creeps in when I realize he isn't here. I try asking around for him, but these people are tight-lipped and give me nothing.

I walk back through downtown, where only the bars and liquor stores are lighting up the night.

The smell of the bread shop still dominates the block as I pass it. I pause in front of the narrow alley that leads back to the dumpsters. He wouldn't still be there.

But I can't stop myself from walking between the tall brick buildings. The buzz of the lone street lamp drowns out my beating heart.

And then I see the motherfucker, asleep in the same spot I left him late this afternoon.

I scream at him for being a worthless thief, but he doesn't move. It's not until I'm inches from his face that I see it.

Eyes that won't close.

I freeze, haunted by the bluest blue.

Kneeling down in front of him, I nudge his shoulder. He doesn't move. All at once I see his stiff hands and his purple lips and an empty bag that is no longer filled with pills.

I can't breathe or think.

Because he's dead. He's _dead_.

For one second, I don't see a homeless junkie. I see a man with a wife and a house and a story. I see a man with a problem. I see a _liar_.

I have to save him.

I dial 911 from the pay phone in front of the liquor store. My voice shakes and my hands shake and everything shakes. He is nothing. He doesn't matter.

He is me.

I hang up before the operator asks me any more questions.

I should go home. But I can't leave him here.

There is a broken fire escape that's always down on the side of the building that sits next to the church. I've sat on this roof more times than I can count.

Except it has never seemed this high or this lonely.

I watch the police cars and the paramedics. I watch him get loaded up.

I sit on the roof for what seems like hours until there is nothing but an empty lot.

I have no concept of time as I walk back home. I'm not even sure what day it is anymore.

The lights are out in the house. I hold my hand over the cold door knob, before turning it. The guilt for leaving Bella in this dark, unlocked house seeps in with each passing second. Until I turn the knob. And it's locked.

For the first time in our marriage, the door is locked.

And I know. I know what I've done. It's all been leading up to this. My knees hit the splintered wood of the porch and it's too much to feel.

I tell myself not to cry. Crying feels like being sucked up in rolling waves, the kind that bring me to shore, only to carry me back out again.

I try to remember Bella's smile during dinner, and I realize that I don't even know her reason.

Breathing is useless. Suffocating seems easier.

A man is dead.

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N:**

**As always, Susan and Kim made this chapter infinitely better. I love them a lot.**

**CC threatened to kill me if I didn't update already. I kind of like living, so here it is.**

**I've been busy and I hate it. I'm working on finding more time to write.**

**Next chapter is written and will be up a week from Monday. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Edward. Is this his rock bottom?**

**Happy International Peace Day!**


	12. Rose

CHAPTER TWELVE: ROSE

_The Town_

_After_

* * *

I am living one day at a time. I am trying and failing to live one day at a time. On the worst days, I realize that I am nowhere close to finding the acceptance, serenity or wisdom that everyone in recovery claims is so important.

My sponsor is adamant that I need to attend more meetings. Except they just make me want to use. I'm not sure how listening to people's tragic stories and staring at their leather faces is supposed to inspire me to stay sober.

I promised Jasper I would get to know some of the other guys in recovery. He thinks I need the camaraderie. I think they are a bunch of degenerate fuck ups and I'm better off on my own.

Junkies have hollow eyes and battered souls. They carry their stories on their backs and their scars in their bones.

I look at them, and I feel like I know them. I know their torment and their anguish. I know their longing and their pathetic excuses. I hate that they see exactly _that_ when they look at me. I hate them.

There is only one person I really need. Jasper says I'm wrong. But he doesn't know her. He doesn't know what we were.

The meeting half over, I try to stay present. I find myself toeing at the layered cracks in the cement floor. I can only listen to the same people share the same sad truths so many times.

Maybe there is something wrong with my brain, but this place just makes me want to get trashed and lie facedown in my own puke.

I listen to all that they have lost: houses, jobs, loved ones. I find myself resenting their sob stories because their losses couldn't possibly compare to losing Bella.

I tell myself that it was my addiction that lost her, but I know deep down that I am the one who ruined us. It was one choice. One day. One impulse. It was a lifetime of lies.

I share with the group. I tell them just enough without really telling them anything at all. They look at me the same way I look at them.

I usually leave as soon as the meeting is over, but I promised Jasper I would make an effort. Never mind that I purposely came to the later meeting because I knew he usually goes to the earlier one. I don't need him keeping tabs on me.

I drink my fifth cup of coffee for the day, pretending that it doesn't taste like lukewarm bath water. I stand next to the refreshments table out front like a fool, eating stale, store-bought cookies and avoiding eye contact with anyone and everyone who passes me in the dark.

A leggy blonde approaches with a smile. I've never seen her here before. I look at her without meaning to. Big blue eyes and delicate features. But she's also twitchy and dirty. She is ugly beautiful.

"Edward, right?"

"Yeah."

She is in my space. Her body and her voice and her heavy mascara. She smells like sex.

She reaches for a styrofoam coffee cup, practically pressing herself up against me in the process. When she has it in her hand she is still right there, standing in front of me, close enough that I can see every sin in her eyes.

"I'm Rose." I somehow doubt that is actually her name.

She plays with the empty cup, picking at the rim. She has filthy fingernails that make my skin crawl.

"Smoke?" she asks, pulling a rumpled pack of cigarettes from her bag and holding it out to me.

_Maybe just one_.

"I quit." I say the words too loudly.

I watch her press the cigarette to her lips and hold my breath as she lights it.

"I bet your wife nagged you forever," she says between drags, motioning to my wedding ring. I've been wearing it. I don't care if Jasper thinks it's self destructive. I need _something_.

"My kid hates it when I smoke," she says nonchalantly.

"You have a kid?" I don't know why this surprises me. Most of the people here have kids.

"Yeah."

There is something familiar and unsettling about her.

"How long have you been clean?" she asks.

I consider telling her everything. My overdose. Detox. The way it felt the first time I got clean. Like I was invincible. My relapse.

"I'll have six months next week."

Her eyes go wide, as if six months is six years. "No shit." I don't want to ask her how long she's been sober because I'm not entirely sure that she is.

She volunteers the information anyway. "I have a solid day." Even that is probably a lie.

She holds her cigarette with a shaky hand. Nicotine is not her usual poison. Her blackened fingertips are her tell.

I want to get away from her and everything that she is. I want to snatch that cigarette from her hand and hold it to my lips until it is nothing but ash. I want to empty out my wallet in a liquor store and swallow anything that burns going down. I want pockets filled with pills.

My entire body twitches and trembles. "I should go."

She grabs hold of my wrist. "Hey, do you want to go somewhere?"

"I don't think that's a good idea," I respond with nervous laughter, rubbing my free hand over my face as I try to pull away from her.

She lets go of me, with a flick of her wrist. "Relax. It wasn't a proposition. Don't flatter yourself." She looks at me with utter disgust, as if I have wronged her in some unforgivable way.

I pass two brightly lit liquor stores and go home to that dark house, trying to forget about the woman with the charred fingertips.

I spend half the night in the dining room, scraping off every last bit of wallpaper. It's stupid, but it feels important.

Bella didn't call me for weeks after she saw me with Wren.

We are back to talking now. She mostly asks about my recovery. She makes me feel like an honest man.

Maybe one day I'll be able to show her the dining room. Maybe never. But I'll finish it all the same.

It's past midnight when I crawl into bed, so tired that I barely notice the cold sheets.

The morning comes too quickly. I'm still under the covers when the phone rings from the kitchen.

I trip down the stairs and pick up on the fourth ring. "Hello?"

"Edward."

Jasper.

"I told you not to call me on Saturdays."

"I worry when I don't hear from you, man."

"I know. I've just been... busy."

"Is _busy_ code for something?"

"Yeah, it's code for fuck off," I tell him, only partly teasing.

"Meet me for coffee at noon?"

"Alright."

"Alright?"

"I said alright."

When it comes to Jasper, I've learned it's better not to argue. He's a persistent motherfucker.

He was married once. He had a wife and a kid. He lost them both to his habits. And even though they live across the country now, he says that his daughter will always be his greatest accomplishment. His _daughter_. Not his sobriety. He never talks about his wife and I'm not sure if the memories are too painful or if she simply doesn't matter.

Jasper does this thing where he hangs up without saying goodbye as soon as he feels that the conversation is over. While it's mildly annoying, I like his predictability.

Bella calls midmorning. Always on a Saturday. I tell her about my week and it feels like the most normal conversation of my life.

She asks more questions about Wren and I answer them the best I can. It's not awkward or weird. It's just an honest conversation with weight.

She asks about Wren's mother. I tell her as much as I know. She can hear the disdain in my voice.

"Do you want to meet her?" I ask nervously.

"Wren's _mom_?"

"No. Sorry, I meant Wren."

She doesn't answer right away and I immediately regret the question. Other than phone conversations, we haven't even spent any time just the two of us. I'm going to scare her away.

But she surprises me. "That would be really nice," she says. And I swear she's smiling when she says it. I swear I can see it. "When do you see her next?"

"Tomorrow."

She doesn't respond right away and I hold my breath.

"I think I can make tomorrow work," she finally says.

_Tomorrow_.

I walk to the coffee shop with the craziest grin on my face. I am high on possibilities.

Jasper is waiting for me at a table out front with two large coffees and blueberry scones.

"You look good, Edward," he smiles as I sit across from him.

"I feel good." It's the truth.

He stares as I sit. "Are you going to tell me why?"

I wasn't planning on it. "I'm meeting up with Bella tomorrow."

He raises his eyebrows at me. "Do you think that's wise?"

I don't care what he thinks is _wise_. "Why do you say that?"

"I just think at this point in your recovery, seeing her again may not be in your best interest. You need to focus on you."

"I know I could do this with her by my side," I try to explain. He doesn't know her.

"You're wrong. You became _this_ with her by your side. She can't do this for you, Edward. Your recovery is yours."

"It's just lunch. She wants to meet Wren."

He shakes his head. "Only you know what you can handle."

Except I have absolutely no idea what I can handle.

"Sometimes I just feel like..." Jasper looks at me expectantly while I try to find the words. "It's like I'm treading water with all of my clothes on and I just want somebody to reach out and pull me to shore. And when I'm talking to her, I feel like the water isn't so deep. It's like I can stand."

There is no pity in his face. Only understanding. "I want to tell you a story," he smiles.

Here we go. "Well maybe I don't want to hear your sad story."

He looks at me with those eyes that haunt. "Maybe you don't know what's good for you."

He has a point. "Alright, let's hear it."

"There once was a man with a vegetable garden."

"If I had known this was going to be a hippie story..."

He ignores me. "One day he discovered a chrysalis hanging from one of his plants. He checked for several days to see if the butterfly had emerged. One morning, he came out to find the chrysalis nearly transparent, the butterfly's wings visible beneath the thin casing. The man watched the butterfly struggle. He watched it for hours."

"Let me guess, the butterfly dies."

"No. You're not listening."

"So far, this is a thrilling story," I tell him, my voice dripping with sarcasm.

He smiles as he speaks. "After hours of seemingly no progress, the man decided to help the butterfly. He couldn't bear to watch it struggle. Gently, he started to open the chrysalis with his fingers. The butterfly fell to the ground in a crumpled heap."

He stares at me. I don't know what my reaction is supposed to be.

"I hope you'll tell it again, Jasper."

"I'm not finished."

"Of course not."

"He waited for its wings to unfold as they dried out but they never did. The man's intentions were good, but he didn't realize that the butterfly's struggle to emerge was an essential part of its survival. The struggle is what pushed blood into the butterfly's wings, allowing them to properly form.

"The butterfly's wings remained crumpled and smashed. It was never able to fly."

"Is this about Alice and Wren? Because you don't know what you're talking about if it is."

"You're not the man in the story, Edward."

"Then what was the point of all of that?"

"I said you're not the _man_ in the story."

"Are you telling me I'm the fucking butterfly?" I ask incredulously.

"Yes. You're the _fucking_ _butterfly_."

I rub my hands over my face.

"Fucking shit, Jasper."

"So, will I see you at tonight's meeting?" he asks, shifting gears.

"Umm, yeah. Yeah, I'll be there."

"Alright, I'll see you later." He waves me off and I wish I hadn't just agreed to that.

I return our mugs to the coffee shop. Jasper is one of those earth loving hippie freaks who refuses to use disposable cups.

It's nearly empty inside. I'm surprised to see Alice behind the counter.

I immediately look for Wren. I spot her on the far side of the shop with her nose pressed against the window.

"Alice, why didn't you call me?"

"I didn't know I was going to have to come in. I was on call. Besides, my sister said she was going to take her today." She rolls her eyes. "I should have known better."

I watch Wren's face as she stares expectantly at the parking lot. She hasn't seen me. I can feel her hurt even though she is trying to hide it. I can feel her torment at waiting, even though I never waited.

I always knew my mother wasn't coming back. I never sat in front of a window or watched the clock. But that doesn't mean I didn't hope she'd show up one day out of the blue. I tried not to think about the possibility because even if she did come back, even if she was standing directly in front of me, I wouldn't know her. I wouldn't even _see_ her.

I walk over to Wren and nudge her shoulder. "Hey you, you want to go throw rocks in the turtle pond?"

She doesn't even look at me. "I can't. My mom is taking me to the zoo today."

"She's not coming today, Wren. But I can take you one day soon," Alice says quietly, trying to placate her.

"She promised," Wren insists, her voice filled with tears.

Alice looks to me and I have no idea what to say to this child who deserves so much more than waiting by a window.

"Sometimes people make promises they don't know how to keep," I try to explain.

"She _promised_."

"I know."

"She crossed her heart and hoped to _die_."

_Hoped to die._

"I know."

She still won't look at me.

"Come on, let's go throw some rocks."

"I don't want you," she scowls. She doesn't mean it, but she does. It hurts and it doesn't.

"Alright. I'll see you tomorrow, Wren."

There is something else I want to say, but I stay quiet, leaving the coffee shop without another word. She's not mine.

I hate her mother for doing that to her. I hate my own for being too much of a coward to even give me that much.

Leaving Wren here to wait seems cruel, but I'm not sure what else to do. I can't save her from feeling pain. I can't save her from anything.

The bells on the glass door jingle as I walk out. I make a wish. For a little girl to have a mother who is late instead of a mother who doesn't show at all. I would give her that if I could.

The tables out front have filled up in the short time I've been inside, everyone soaking up the sun. It's perfect weather for taking a little girl to the zoo.

Not ten feet away is the woman with the fingernails, who claims to be named after a flower.

She is wearing the same clothes I saw her in at last night's meeting and is draped all over some guy whose pockets are filled with dirty money.

I can't help but stare.

She tries to peel herself off of him, but he holds on possessively. They are disgusting. She looks over at me, her eyes lit with mischief and something far more sinister. "Do I know you?"

"Rose?" I'm breaking the _anonymous_ rule.

She looks through me. "_Edward_, right?" I hate the way she says my name. Like it's dirty.

"I'll be right back," she tells the guy with ugly teeth.

She stands in front of me, her fingers tugging at the ends of her hair. She is lit out of her fucking mind right now.

"Did you have a change of heart?" she slurs with a crooked smile.

"You're high."

"Jealous?" There is no longer anything beautiful about her. She is only ugly.

The door behind me swings open and before I can process what is happening, Wren has wrapped herself around Rose's leg.

I am blind and deaf and dumb.

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N: **

**As always, many thanks to Susan and Kim for being my girls. **

**CC and Peri give me endless support and I love them for it.**

**It feels good to be updating again. Chapter 13 will be up in a week :)**


	13. She Leaves

**A/N:**

**Susan and Kim deserve all of the awards.**

**I'm not a fan of tissue warnings because I hate being told how to feel. That said, I have this uncontrollable urge to tell you that this chapter is kind of dark. And now I'm shutting up.**

**See you in two weeks.**

* * *

**-Honest Liar-**

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: SHE LEAVES

_The Town_

_After_

* * *

I am honest.

I am what my wife has always been, except she hates me for it. She will, once she finally lets herself hear me.

She was already crying. Before. But those were a different kind of tears.

I tell her _this_ truth for the first time. There is no going back. I have taken it all away from her. I have taken _everything_. Her eyes are hell on earth and they will never forgive.

There is so much that I want to say. So much more than this confession. But I can no longer force myself to speak.

_I couldn't tell you. I couldn't be who you wanted me to be. I couldn't say no. I couldn't break you. I couldn't be more than this man._

Her face is in her hands and I hate what I've done.

She stood by me when I told her a different truth. She has to stand by me through this one too. She has to.

Sitting in the center of our bed with her knees up to her chest, her sobs fill the room. I want to pry her fingers off of her eyes and force her to look at me. But I can't move. I can't fucking move.

Her cries turn to screams and I'm the reason. I am her hurt and her rage.

And although she is perfect, even in her anger, I can't survive knowing that her pain is because of _me_.

I watch her from my spot in the middle of our bedroom. There is nothing to lean on. No furniture. No lies.

I want to wrap her up in our quilt and protect her. But I cannot be the one to protect and the one to harm. Even I know that it doesn't work that way.

My mind is so loud that I don't even notice that her screaming has stopped until she is gone from the bed, pulling her clothes from our closet and shoving them into a bag.

And now I'm finally in motion. I am the one screaming. I am promising everything that I want to be true. I can't hear any of it. _Nothing_.

My heart is pounding in my ears, my arms flailing. I grab her by the shoulders. I have to _stop_ her.

"Do not touch me!" she screams. Fierce and angry. Teeth and claws.

She looks at me like I'm a villain. She _sees_ me. She fucking sees me and I am powerless to stop her.

I let go of her without meaning to.

I watch my hands as I frantically start pulling her clothes out of the bag, throwing them around the room. To the floor. Against the walls. They don't make enough _noise_.

The screaming won't stop.

I grab hold of her again and I swear I can feel her heart beating through her skin.

"How could you, Edward? How could you do this to me?"

"I don't know."

"Let go of me," she demands, too calm for what is happening.

"I shouldn't have told you." I don't recognize my own voice.

"You shouldn't have _told_ me? You should have told me from the start! You shouldn't have done it. I'm your _wife_. All of this time..."

"I love you."

"You don't even know what that _means_," she spits back.

"I love you."

"Stop it."

"I _love_ you."

I pull her to me, holding her as tight as I can, my fingers pressing into her arms. She is rigid under my touch. And I can feel it. She's not mine anymore.

She was never mine.

I don't know how long I've been on my knees. I don't know anything. Except what it feels like to have my face pressed against her stomach.

_Please_.

_Forgive me._

_Please._

I am grabbing and holding on because I know this is it. I know it's too much to forgive.

I know.

"Let go of me. Now." Her voice catches in her throat. And I have to see her. I have to see her face. She won't look at me. Her glassy eyes are staring at the corner of the room, where the wall meets the ceiling.

_Look_ _at me._

Her eyes trained on that corner, her lips twist around her words. "If you ever loved me at all, you'll let go. You'll let me go."

I can hear it in her voice. I can feel it in her skin. I can see it in her tears that refuse to fall. I am dead to her.

"Let me go," she whispers, her expression like stone.

I hold her tighter. I can't stop.

"I love you."

"I..." she stutters. "I... I don't even _know_ you."

"I'm sorry," I plead, my face buried in her shirt. "Bella, I'm so sorry."

"I hate you, you fucking liar."

It bites and burns and bleeds me dry.

I think I let go. I think I do. All I know is that I'm not touching her anymore. She is gone from my grasp, picking up her clothes that are scattered around the room.

I turn around, facing the window. Refusing to watch her walk away from everything that she promised we could be.

I listen to her feet on the hardwood. She doesn't cry. I listen to her feet and count her footsteps as she shoves her clothes in that bag.

Her feet go quiet. Mine feel heavy. Like they're bolted to the floor.

But they're not. Because I'm facing her now. I'm watching the way her hair hangs down her back as she walks away. With a bag slung over her shoulder.

She pauses in the doorway to our room, her eyes trained on the hardwood. I watch her reach out for the shirt at her feet. Her favorite shirt. My shirt. The one from high school.

But she leaves it there, on the crooked floor.

I follow her from our room, down the stairs, to the front door. I wait for her to look back.

I wait and I wait and I wait.

I wait until she's gone. And I am left with exactly nothing.

The door stays open, creaking slightly. The sound makes me want to rip it from its hinges.

The sun is low behind the trees, shining in through the open door. It's blinding.

The longer I stare, the more I swear I can see her, standing in the driveway. Twirling around.

Until it's the darkest dark and she is nowhere.

She left. And she's not coming back. She left. And I let her.

There is a pack of cigarettes in the bottom right kitchen cabinet where we keep the odd shaped pots and pans. It's all I can think about. I'm in the kitchen before I can stop myself.

I pull everything out, letting the pans clamor to the ground. I hold the full pack in my fist. I stare at my tangled hands and I can only see the devil in my fingers.

I can't smoke them in the house. I stare out the foggy glass of the back door. I can't smoke them. In the house.

I don't have a lighter, just a matchbook from the Puerto Rican restaurant downtown.

I hold the matches in my traitor hands, accidentally ripping out two instead of one.

I'm pathetic.

I sit on the cold back steps with my cigarettes until the pack is gone and my fingers are burned from holding on too long.

My entire body is swaying, lost at sea.

I walk back in through the kitchen and straight to the still-open front door. Holding the doorknob in a tight fist, I slam the door closed, shaking the whole house, making it scream.

And when the door swings back open, refusing to catch, I am the one who is screaming. With my lungs and my fists.

I am living, breathing rage.

And I can't stop. I can't stop that swinging door from slamming again and again until it feel like the entire place is going to come down like a house of cards.

I take the stairs two at a time. They shake and protest under my feet.

I turn right instead of left. There is only one thing that can take this all away.

My fingers are fire as I try to pry up the floorboard in the guest room. My seventh place.

It is nailed down too tight. Because of a moment like this. Because I know myself and hate myself and gave myself an out.

I run back down the stairs, the sound of each creaking stair taunting me. I rummage through the garage until I find the rusty crowbar.

I take the stairs too fast. I know it, but I can't stop myself. And when I trip on the step that's too tall, I hate the world just a little bit more. I hate this house and this life. I hate _her_.

The board comes up easily now. It lies face up with two ancient nails bent in odd directions.

I snatch the little box from its hiding place, holding it in my palm before shaking it. The sound brings a lone second of relief.

I don't count them. There are too many to count. I don't waste any time.

In the bathroom, in front of the mirror, I do things with those pills that only junkies do. And I know exactly who I am.

I see myself so clearly. So very, very clearly.

With my hands holding on to the sink, I look into that mirror. I stare at my reflection. And I am nothing but a fucking liar.

It doesn't take long before I no longer recognize my own body.

My arms feel too long and my legs too short as I trip down the stairs. I need to lie down. Just for a minute.

Nothing is real. Nothing.

I fall. I think.

I'm in the dining room. On my back, staring at the peeling wallpaper.

I feel like there are shards of glass in my veins, saltwater biting at my skin. Like I'm lying on the beach, just at the edge of the water and all of my blood is slowly draining from my body, seeping into the wet sand, staining it red with sin.

I hope the waves take me away. I hope they carry me out to sea and rip me apart.

My eyelids are too heavy, my heartbeat too thick.

The pain fades slowly, and then all at once. It feels like kissing in the rain, putting a ring on her finger, peeling off her clothes. Like laughing in the dark, rolling in the sheets, tangling my fingers in her hair.

My eyes refuse to open. And it's okay.

I am _nothing _without her.

Death couldn't possibly be worse.

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

.

.

.


	14. Her Father

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: HER FATHER

The Country

Before

* * *

I am a high school graduate and I am buck naked.

I'm not alone.

I desperately need a smoke, but the prettiest girl is asleep next to me with her hair draped over my pillow.

Bella stirs, but doesn't open her eyes. She's sleeping on my left arm and we're naked. _Naked_ naked. I'm glad that this bed wasn't made for two.

I try to lie still so that I can watch her a little bit longer. She doesn't let me stare when she's awake.

I almost can't believe that last night really happened. Taking off her clothes. Touching her everywhere. Listening to her beg. Being inside of her.

I want to run my thumb over her bottom lip. Or my palm over her tits. But I don't do either. I'm too afraid to ruin it.

The sheet is lying across her and she looks so peaceful. So young. But no longer innocent.

I watch her face until the sun is shining so bright that the entire room looks like it's on fire.

"Morning," I whisper as her eyes eventually blink open. She curls into my side and presses her warm, sleepy body flush against mine. She feels like nothing I've ever known.

I can't help but kiss her forehead. Her eyelids. I want to kiss them open. I want to see her brown, brown eyes and make sure she is the same girl she was yesterday.

And yet, I'm afraid she will open her eyes and they will be filled with nothing but regret. For last night and for all of the days that came before.

When she finally does look at me, I can't tell what she feels or thinks or wants.

I should ask her if she's okay, if it was good for her, if she'll stay forever. Instead, I say nothing. I kiss the tip of her nose and just breathe.

Her eyes flutter closed and stay that way for an extra beat. When she opens them, they are like the sun, shining so bright that it hurts to look straight at her.

I want to tell her that I love her, but she wouldn't like it, so I kiss the corner of her mouth. Maybe she'll be able to feel it. Maybe I can say it without having to speak it.

A lazy smile pulls at her lips, making everything right, but it quickly fades. She wants to say something and without knowing what it is, I'm sure that I won't want to hear it.

"Bella?"

She looks away from me, staring at the popcorn ceiling. "We can't do that again, Edward."

Her voice presses down on my chest.

I want to tell her that she's wrong. I want to hide from her.

"I mean, without a condom." And she's looking at me now.

_Oh._

Thank fuck.

She keeps talking, nervously stumbling over her words, and I realize that I haven't said anything at all. "I don't want a _baby_," she goes on. "We can't be parents. We just can't... be that stupid, okay?"

Her eyes are wide now. Too wide. Like the moon.

"Okay, yeah," I promise her.

We lie side by side in suffocating silence. I just want her to touch me. I want to feel her heartbeat. But I want more than that. I want last night all over again.

The front door slams shut, rattling the entire house. Bella startles next to me, her eyes darting to my closed bedroom door. And the look on her face is like everything is about to come crashing down.

My dad hasn't been home in days. I don't want to think about where he's been or what he's been doing or who he's been doing it with.

"Don't worry, he'll pass out in a few minutes," I whisper into her hair.

Bella's entire body is rigid, like she's afraid of him. I guess I would be too, if I didn't know how pathetic he is.

I pull her back into my side. Her skin against mine seems to relax her.

"Is he going to check on you?" she whispers, completely serious.

I almost laugh. "No."

"How do you know?"

"Trust me."

We lie still until the house is quiet. Bella doesn't ask me where he's been. I somehow doubt that her father stumbles in midmorning and passes out without a word to anyone.

Her hand brushes my thigh, and that's all it takes for me to want her. Her mouth and her hands and her body.

"What do you want to do today?" Her voice is so fucking sexy.

"This," I tell her, kissing along her neck. Pressing my lips to her pulse.

Her fingers run over my forehead, into my hair, and I love that hand. "I'm being serious, Edward."

"So am I," I assure her, my lips to her ear.

"I was thinking I could help you study for your driver's permit." She pulls away from me, looking at me expectantly. Like she's asking for a puppy.

"What's the point? I told you, I'm not taking driver's training."

"You don't have to. You're eighteen." When she speaks, she always sounds like she knows what she's talking about. I wish I could be like that. "All you have to do is pass the written test. Then you can practice driving with a licensed adult over the age of twenty-five."

I'm not exactly sure where I'm going to find one of those.

"My mom will do it," she offers, like it's nothing.

I wish her body was always pushed up against mine.

"Your mom is _not_ teaching me how to drive."

"That's what moms do, Edward." It stings just a little. In my lungs.

"I already know how to drive."

"Yeah, well, when you get caught driving without a license, you'll get arrested."

"The cops around here aren't going to arrest me." Except that's a lie. They would probably jump at the chance.

Her hands still in my hair and I didn't even realize how good her fingers felt against my scalp until they stop moving.

"Is that a scar?" She scoots herself up on the bed, pulling the sheet with her, trying to see it.

And I don't want this conversation. "It's nothing."

"It doesn't feel like nothing. It feels like a huge scar," she whisper-shouts.

Her concern makes my stomach hurt.

"Oh my god, Edward. What did you do?" She tries to sit up to get a better look, but I pull her back down next to me.

"It doesn't matter. It was a long time ago. I was a kid."

I try to kiss her eyes closed. I try to kiss away all of her questions.

She smells amazing.

"Tell me, Edward." And the way she says my name, I'd tell her anything.

"Why?"

"I want to know." She says it like that's reason enough. She shouldn't care so much about things that don't matter.

"_Tell me_," she insists.

"You're pretty."

"No."

And when I try to kiss her she gives me her cheek instead of her lips. She knows exactly how to get what she wants.

"I got hit by a car when I was seven while I was riding my bike in the post office parking lot, alright?" This is so embarrassing.

Her eyes go wide. "You got _hit by a car_?"

"I don't remember it. It was an accident."

"Where were your parents?"

"Fuck if I know."

"_Edward_." She gives me that look like she feels sorry for me and then she smacks me in the arm. It hurts. A little.

"What was _that_ for?"

"For your complete lack of self-preservation skills."

"My _what_?"

"Please stop walking in the middle of the street, Edward."

"Fine."

"Don't lie to me."

_I don't want to._

"Bella, walking in the street has nothing to do with anything."

"You're wrong."

We lie quietly in my small room, in this house with pink carpet. Her fingers trace over my chest and it's my favorite day. I wish I had the nerve to tell her.

"Bella?"

"Yeah?"

"Your mom is not teaching me to drive."

She doesn't answer, but she holds me tighter. I don't know what any of it means.

My dad is irritable for the next few days. I try to stay out of the house as much as possible.

Bella and I spend the first week of summer in the tall grass underneath the willow tree. And it's kind of like how it was before, with one of us awkwardly stealing kisses from the other.

I want to ask her when we can have sex again, but I'm not sure how to say it without sounding like a total prick.

My appointment at the DMV for my driver's permit is this afternoon. Bella said she had stuff to do at home today but to come over whenever I wanted.

I've never stood on her front porch before. Everything is so clean.

I try the door knob but it's locked. So I knock. I can never tell if anyone is home, because their cars are always parked in the garage. The Swans have a four car garage. It could comfortably house a family of six.

When nobody answers, I knock again.

A lone crow sits in the gangly oak on the edge of their property. It has something in its talons. Something dead. Crows will eat anything. I am suddenly very sweaty.

When the door finally swings open, and it's not Bella standing in front of me, I want nothing more than to run.

"May I help you?" Mrs. Swan asks with a smile. It's the first time I've ever seen her up close. She has big eyes and a lot of teeth.

"Oh... yeah."

Bella pushes past her mom, taking my hand and pulling me into her perfect house. "Mom, you remember Edward."

Mrs. Swan smiles at our joined hands like she does remember, but I'm positive we've never met before.

Before I can look around, Bella's leading me up the stairs to her room.

"Is your dad home?" _Please say no_.

"He works late. He usually doesn't make it home for dinner."

Bella's room is different than I thought it would be. It's so grown-up. And when I look around, I don't see her.

She has all of these college brochures spread out over her bed. I try to look anywhere but her bed. Her _huge_ bed.

She's talking about some school in the city that her parents want her to go to, but I have a hard time listening to anything she is saying. Because we are alone. In her room. With the door closed. And she's wearing this dress. I think it's blue. And she looks really fucking pretty.

She's talking with her hands and I have to kiss her right this second.

I cross the room as if it's a matter of life and death, my mouth crashing into hers. And it only takes a second before she's kissing me back. And maybe, just maybe, she wants me as much as I want her.

We are somehow on her bed. On crinkling paper. And I am pressing her to the mattress with everything I have.

I love the way our kisses sound in a quiet room. And the way her tongue feels. And the way she smells like summer.

"I missed you," she says against my lips.

And the way she misses me.

I want to consume her.

"We're going to be late," she says halfheartedly as I kiss along her jaw.

"Don't care."

She laughs and I just love everything about her.

"Edward..."

"I don't need a driver's license," I promise her, as my hand finds its way under the hem of her shirt. Her skin is so warm and soft and everything I need in the world.

There is a loud knock on the door. And we're both standing. Straightening out our clothes. Faster than I've ever done anything.

"Just a minute," Bella shouts, before standing up on her tiptoes kissing me like it's the last time she'll ever kiss me.

And then she's gone, opening her bedroom door. Her mother stands there, smiling awkwardly and looking around her daughter, scanning the room.

"Just checking to see if Edward would like to stay for dinner."

If she wasn't so nice, I'd hate her.

"I can't tonight. My dad's getting take-out," I lie.

"Another time then," she says sweetly. She still doesn't look at me and I'm grateful.

"We have to get going anyway," Bella tells her, grabbing her car keys.

I follow her down the stairs even though I want nothing more than to go back up them and lock ourselves in her room. To fuck her in that huge bed.

The DMV is two towns over and it smells like moldy cheese. Bella waits in one of those plastic orange chairs while the lady behind the counter hands me my test and a pencil. The woman looks at me like she hates me. Or maybe she just hates her life.

The lady points to the corner of the room towards a high counter. My heart is beating too fast. I feel like an idiot. For caring about a stupid driving test.

I don't even know why I'm here.

Bella smiles at me from across the room and for a brief moment, everything makes sense.

Number one: Something about speed limits in a construction zone. The words are confusing and I don't know why they are using so many to ask a simple question.

Each question is more of the same. With answers that all look wrong or all look right.

I hand my test back to the woman at the counter as soon as I've circled my last answer. She starts correcting it right there in front of me and when she's finished she looks at me like she knows me. "You can take it again in thirty days."

I stare at her as if she's not speaking English.

"That's bullshit."

She raises her eyebrows at me before shouting, "Next!"

I want a lot of things in this moment, but more than anything I wish that Bella wasn't the one who drove me here.

I need to get out of here. Now.

I head straight for the double doors and I hate her for making me do this.

The parking lot is too bright, and filled with too many cars that I'm not allowed to drive.

"Edward?"

I don't turn around. I try to shove the test in my pocket but she's too fast, taking it from me. And I can't look at her.

"You got eleven wrong? You told me you studied."

"I did!"

"Then what happened?" she presses.

"They were bullshit questions!" I scream at her. And when I turn around she's smiling. She covers her mouth, trying not to laugh and I hate her for being so perfect at everything.

The DMV garbage can is asking to be kicked. Before I do something stupid and break my foot, her hand is on my shoulder. And as much as I want to shrug it off, I don't.

"Come on, Edward, let's get out of here." She doesn't say anything else and I'm reminded of how much I love her.

She drives and drives and drives until I don't know where we are anymore. We're practically to the mountains. Something about the trees and windy roads make me feel like less of a moron. I don't know how she always knows what to do.

"Where are we?"

"Does it matter?"

We pull over at one of those rest stops along the side of the highway. I smoke out front while Bella uses the bathroom. It's not until my cigarette is almost gone that I regret it. Because I want to kiss her in that stupid shiny car and now she won't let me. I should start carrying around a toothbrush.

She watches me put out my cigarette, the strangest expression on her face. Like I'm important.

"What?" I ask her. Because I think I want to know what she sees.

"Nothing."

I follow her to the car and when she doesn't start the engine right away, I get brave and try to kiss her. Cigarette and all.

And the best part is, she lets me.

It's slow. Like I'm trying to say I'm sorry for things that aren't her fault.

She holds my face between her palms. Like everything is okay. It's more than I deserve, but I'll take it.

I could destroy her.

She crawls over the console and into my lap, pressing herself against me and it's too intentional to be misunderstood.

With her knees digging into the seat and her hands in my hair she kisses me like I'm all that matters in her world. She feels so good that I don't even care that we're both fully clothed.

She's almost frantic, her hips moving against me, making her _feel_. But she can't possibly feel what I feel. With her fingers against my scalp, her tongue in my mouth and my heart on the floor.

I wonder if she'll let me undress her in this rest stop parking lot.

"We should get back," she says against my mouth. And I have my answer.

"Bella?"

"Yeah?" Her face is so serious. Like it's full of secrets.

"Your mom's not teaching me to drive."

She smiles because she knows.

Mrs. Swan teaches me to drive.

She's not who I thought she'd be. She talks to me like I'm a person instead of a fuck up. She smells like hairspray and she always has snacks.

She smiles when I hold Bella's hand. She laughs when I say something that isn't supposed to be funny, and it's not even embarrassing. She's just a kind lady. And I have no idea why she's so nice to me. Maybe she's just the best liar.

She doesn't like my car, so we always take the Mercedes. Her father doesn't know.

We pull into the Swans' garage next to a car that isn't usually here. "Edward, I'd love to have you and your parents over for dinner," Mrs. Swan says confidently. Like it's not a question.

She doesn't know anything about this country town or the people who live here.

"It's just me and my dad. He usually works late."

She looks at me with the most horrified expression. "Who cooks for you?"

"Nobody really cooks."

"It's settled then. You and your father can join us for dinner tonight. My husband is grilling steaks and it's perfect weather to eat out on the back patio." She waits for my response, smiling expectantly, and it's the weirdest thing because it's almost like she's begging. "I bought extra, just in case."

"I don't know. I mean, my dad... he's not... home."

She looks at me like she knows. But she couldn't possibly know. She has a vegetable garden and flowers everywhere and she waters down the driveway. The woman cleans her fucking driveway.

"Just you then. How do you take your steak?"

My heart starts beating erratically because I don't know what that even means. And I hate my dad. For never cooking steak.

Mrs. Swan waits for my response and she smiles so kindly that I just want to get out of here.

"Medium," Bella interjects. And I love her a little bit more.

"Alright, I'll go tell your father."

She scurries away, leaving Bella and I alone in the kitchen.

"You never talk about her," she practically whispers.

"Who?"

"Your mom."

"So?"

"Is she... I mean, where is she?"

"She's not here."

My father told me once that my mother went away. Another time he said she was dead. I don't know what she is. I don't know the truth from the lie. But I do know that she's not here on a Saturday teaching me to drive. Maybe she has a different family now. Maybe she's rotting in the ground.

I have this memory of being small. The kind of small where you feel big. There was this woman at the grocery store. Bella's mom reminds me of her. I don't know why. They don't look alike or have the same smile, or the same eyes or the same voice.

Maybe the woman smelled like hairspray too.

She looked at me in a way that I think only a mother can look at her child. But maybe she was nobody and my memory is trying to convince me of things that aren't true.

Bella and I sit on the kitchen stools and talk about everything but my mother.

Mr. Swan walks in from the back patio, shaking his head the second he sees me.

He holds out his hand like he expects me to shake it. His grip is so firm that it's painful. I immediately hate him. I look him in the eye. I try to stand tall.

He hates me too. And I can't wait to give him a reason.

Mrs. Swan appears with a pitcher of lemonade. "Everything's just about ready, kids."

I follow them all out and this is the most bizarre night of my life.

Their patio table faces my dad's property and the difference between their land and ours is glaring. It's easier if I pretend not to know the man who lives in that house.

Bella's father carries over the plate of steaks. "Sit," he tells nobody in particular.

We all sit.

"Medium rare is the only way to eat a steak," he says, challenging me with his eyes.

He watches me cut my steak and it's like he's waiting for something. I stare him down until he speaks.

"So nice of you to join us, Edward."

"Yeah. Thanks."

I try not to say anything that will make me sound stupid. But the fucker keeps asking me questions.

"Will you be graduating next spring with Bella?"

"Edward already graduated, Dear," Mrs. Swan tells him. She smiles at me as I take a huge bite of my steak.

"How old are you, Son?"

I finish chewing before answering him. Because it's polite. "I'm not your _son_."

Three pairs of eyes stare back at me.

"Can I get anyone more lemonade?" Mrs. Swan offers nervously. She starts refilling glasses even though nobody has answered her.

"Dad, have you seen the old barn on Edward's land?"

He looks at me instead of her. "You know," he tells me, "all of that tall grass you have is a fire hazard for this entire area. Your father could be fined for not keeping the brush down." Everything is condescending. His voice. His expression. His posture.

As if on cue, my father appears out on our back deck. I try not to look at Mrs. Swan's face. She smiles at Bella's father, pretending to hang on his every word. Like a dutiful wife.

_They don't even sleep in the same bed._

Bella stares at me from across the table and I wish she wasn't so far away.

All of a sudden I'm picturing her naked and remembering the way her flushed skin feels against mine.

I want to take her away from this house and these people and never look back.

I try to ignore the sputtering of my father's riding mower in the background. If Mrs. Swan didn't see him before, she has definitely noticed him now. But she doesn't let on.

The birds begin to scream and shout before taking flight, the sky filled with beating wings.

That's when I see it. The thick smoke rising silently across the field, filling the sky and staining it gray.

"Fuck," I murmur, knocking my chair over as I jump from the table.

I'm running across the Swans' manicured lawn, screaming at my father, but it's no use.

By the time I'm swinging my legs over the white fence, he sees it too. The flames and the smoke and losing everything.

And then we're both running.

He's already heading in the direction of the frog pond in search of a bucket.

My heart is beating so fast, I feel like I'm flying. And I don't stop until I've dragged the hose over the star thistle to the edge of orange and black.

The buckets upon buckets of water being tossed from the pond don't seem to do anything but anger the fire.

This entire town could burn to the ground. It could burn and disappear into nothing but ash and bone.

And I suddenly don't care. I don't _care_.

Bella is here and she is screaming. She is screaming at me without any shoes on, her bare feet bitten by star thistle. She pries the hose from my useless fingers and I can only watch the flames.

I stand motionless, only vaguely aware of Bella's father and a fire extinguisher.

The sound is deafening.

The red extinguisher lies on the sizzling dirt as the distant sirens grow louder and louder.

The firemen are focused and fast.

My dad sits in the dirt with his palms to his eyes.

And when it's all over, the five of us stare at the dead ground for what seems like forever.

The edge of Bella's sundress is tattered and burnt, and the thought of her being hurt is too much to consider.

"Are you okay?" she whispers, her eyes trained on my blackened hands.

"Go in the house, Bella," her father interrupts.

"_No_."

He shakes his head, looking up at the sky and laughing. "You _would_ go and fall in love with that boy," he spits at her.

The disdain in her voice is equal to his. "I'm not in _love_ with him."

I can't breathe. Everything is charred and black.

I don't know anything. At all.

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N:**

**To Susan and Kim for fixing everything. I love them (and miss them loads).**

**To CC for reminding me that I haven't updated in "70 weeks".**

**Happy Thanksgiving! I hope your cranberry sauce was amazing.**

**Thanks for your tremendous patience. Life should be slowing down for me soon, giving me more time to write.**

**See you sooner than 70 weeks ;)**


	15. Patience

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: PATIENT

_The Town_

_After_

* * *

I am arguing with a five-year-old over what's appropriate for a little girl to wear out in public. I never thought this would be my life.

Jasper says that guilt serves no useful purpose: in recovery, in love, in life. But sometimes the guilt is so thick that I can hardly breathe.

I made the choice. I agreed. I promised.

Wren and I walk down 4th Street, hand in hand, and I wish I knew who bought her these ridiculous clothes.

"Who dressed you?"

"I dressed myself," she says proudly, admiring her outfit, what little of it there is to admire anyway.

"You forgot a sweater."

"I'm not cold."

"Well you can't wear that," I blurt out.

She stops walking. I think she might be about to cry as she pulls her hand out from mine and crosses her arms over her chest.

I have no idea what I'm supposed to do now.

I try to put my hand on her shoulder, but she shrugs it off. I don't know where girls learn that shit.

"Wren."

She looks everywhere but at me. "What?"

"I'm sorry for hurting your feelings. It's just that those are dress-up clothes." _If you're a hooker_. "They're not clothes you wear to the diner."

She looks at me now, with those sad brown eyes. "I was trying to look pretty."

She was trying to look _pretty_. And I'm a total jackass.

"You're already pretty. Besides, what do you need to look pretty around me for?" I tease her, hoping it will make her smile.

"So you'll be my best friend."

She's serious. This kid.

"You can't get a best friend by dressing up."

"Why not?"

"Because... life doesn't work that way."

"Then how do you get one?"

"I think best friends just happen to you. You have to be patient."

"What's patient?"

"It's when you have to wait for something for a long time."

"I hate patient."

"I know, kid." I hate patient too.

She pulls on my fingers as we walk until she's holding my hand again.

"What do you want to do after lunch?"

She does that thing with her eyebrows where she looks mad, but really she's just thinking. "I want to go to the beach," she shouts as she jumps all around on the sidewalk.

The beach.

"How are we supposed to get there?"

She thinks about it for a moment. "You could steal a car."

"You watch too much TV."

"Aunt Alice lets me watch Disney princesses and my mom is going to take me Disneyland. She promised."

That liar. I have never hated anyone so much in my life.

Wren seems to have forgotten all about last week. About waiting and waiting and waiting. Only to have that woman, her _mother_, show up high as a kite, and then disappear again. But I haven't forgotten. I'm still reeling.

She puts her addiction before her child who loves her. She is heartless, cold, selfish. I understand her too well.

I give Wren my hoodie to wear and she doesn't complain that it practically reaches her ankles.

"Do I look like a gangster?"

A _what_?

"No, you look like a little girl."

We go to the diner for Sunday brunch. The one that only takes cash. Wren likes hash browns and root beer floats and this is the place for both.

She chooses a table right by the door. She wants to see who is coming and going. I wish I didn't know why. We get a breeze when the door opens, but it's fine because she's happy.

Every time the bell on the door chimes, Wren sits up on her knees and says _hello_ to whoever walks in. It's embarrassing and funny. Luckily my back is to the door, so I don't have to see the strangers' faces.

I've been taking her to places that are important to me. I usually tell her why, but not today. I'm not going to tell her that Bella and I would always walk here on Sundays after a lazy morning of making love.

"You have ketchup on your face," she tells me with a mouth full of food.

"Thanks." I wink at her before wiping it off, and it makes her laugh. The way little girls laugh.

The diner is loud, people talking all around. Wren's eyes go wide and serious as the bell rings behind me for the hundredth time. She stares instead of saying hello.

Something tells me not to look.

"It looks like the only places to sit are up at the bar." I know that voice. I will _always_ know that voice.

"How long of a wait for a table for three?" _Please stop talking. Please._

I can't breathe.

I can tell by the expression on Wren's face the second Bella sees us.

"It's too crowded, Mom. Let's go somewhere else." And I can hear it in her voice.

I don't turn around to see who else is with her. For her sake. But mostly for mine.

I watch Wren's face. Her eyes are still big, but she stays quiet. I close my eyes and hold my breath, waiting for the bells on the door.

And when they finally ring, Wren is no longer staring over my shoulder; she's looking at me expectantly. Like I owe her an explanation. "You didn't say hi."

My heart is racing. I promised.

"No. I didn't," I tell her, without telling her anything.

"Why?"

"Because she wasn't alone."

She won't stop staring at me. Like she's trying to understand. I stare back until she's scowling.

"Is she your girlfriend?"

"No."

"Aunt Alice says it's not nice to lie."

She thinks I'm lying. If she only knew.

"I try not to lie anymore."

"Because it's wrong to lie?"

"Because it hurts people."

"Do you kiss her on the lips? She's your girlfriend if you kiss her on the lips."

"No."

"Then what do you do?"

"We talk mostly."

"Why?"

_I guess we both have a lot to say._

"You ask a lot of questions. Finish your breakfast."

She wrinkles her nose at me before taking a huge bite of her cinnamon roll.

"Is she your best friend?" she asks, her mouth full.

_She was once._

"I don't know," I answer honestly.

"Why don't you _know_?"

"Because it's not that simple."

"Because you have to be patient?"

"Because she's my wife." I say it without thinking. I immediately regret it.

"You got a _wife_?" she nearly shouts, slapping her hands on the table. I resist the urge to cover her mouth with my hand.

"No."

"But you said..."

"Just forget it, okay?"

"I'm going to get married someday. Maybe to a boy, maybe to a girl. That's allowed."

I try my best not to laugh. "Yes, that's allowed."

"You're married to her?"

"I was once."

"But not anymore?"

"No, not anymore."

"Are you a dad too?"

"No. I'm not. I'm not a dad."

"Are you gonna cry?"

"No."

"You can be my dad if you want."

She says it like it's nothing. Like she's offering me a bite of her pastry.

"That's very nice, Wren, but I'm afraid it doesn't work that way."

"It's okay. I can be patient." She tries unsuccessfully to wink. "It means waiting a long time."

We spend the day at the children's library. I'm the only man in a room full of mothers and their kids. I probably shouldn't be here. It must be obvious because the librarian points us in the right direction without me having to ask.

"Your little girl is adorable."

I nod, instead of correcting her. Wren smiles wide. I don't want to be added to the list of people who break her heart, but I think I might be in too deep already.

She chooses a pile of books and we sit on the floor for half a day reading stories about little girl things. She tucks her knees up inside my huge sweatshirt. With the hood up and the drawstrings pulled tight, I read as she turns the pages. She is so grown up, and so very, very small.

And when I drop her back off at the coffee shop she tells Alice, "Patient means waiting a _really_ long time." She blinks at me and it's hard to say goodbye.

Alice drops me off at the house and I promise Wren that I'll see her in a few days. I have a job just outside of town that should take a day or two.

When I'm home, in that quiet, empty house that haunts, I can't help but think about a little girl without a father. I don't let myself think about her for too long. My thoughts will only make me want to swallow a handful of pills.

I busy myself in the bedroom. The small one. I've been fixing it up. All that's left to do is paint the trim.

Bella calls just after sunset, even though it's not Saturday. I know it's her before I pick up.

We talk about the weather and the construction downtown and everything but this morning.

"Edward, are we going to talk about this?"

"Talk about what?"

"I hate it when you do that," she tells me honestly.

I don't know what to say.

_I'm glad you left. I wanted you to stay._

"I'm sorry about the diner, Edward."

_She's_ sorry.

"Nothing to be sorry about."

"Edward, I didn't know what to do."

"I know." I didn't know what to do either.

"Can we talk about this or do you want to just talk around it like we've been doing for months?"

"I don't know what you want me to say, Bella."

Neither of us speaks. This is why I hate the phone.

"How is your mom?" I try.

She's quiet for a long time. "She's good."

"Bella..."

She interrupts me before I can ask a different question that I'm not allowed to ask. "She's good, Edward."

And the way she says my name. I want to ask her all of the questions in the world. I want to apologize for every mistake I've ever made and seek forgiveness for every lie I've ever told.

"What did you do today?" It seems like a safe question.

"We went to the beach." I can hear her smile. She always loved the beach.

I have so much that I need to say to her. But I don't know how to say any of it out loud.

We hang up and I spend the rest of the night peeling off every last inch of wallpaper in the dining room.

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N:**

**To Susan and Kim, for how much they care about this story and these characters.**

**To CC and Peri for reading and encouraging me to post.**

**Happy New Year! Broken any resolutions yet?**

**Thanks for your patience. Chapter 16 will be up a week from today :)**


	16. Beautiful

CHAPTER SIXTEEN: BEAUTIFUL

_The Country_

_Before_

* * *

I am an idiot. Bella doesn't love me. She made that perfectly clear.

_I'm not in love with him._

I wake up on the couch, freezing cold, next to an empty liquor bottle. I hold it above my mouth and watch one last drop cling to the rim before it burns my tongue. I should have saved some for the morning. Or afternoon. Or whatever the fuck this is.

My dad disappeared shortly after the fire trucks yesterday. I won't see him for days. Maybe he'll end up in a ditch somewhere.

I take a shower because it's the only thing to do. I try not to think about Bella when I jack off, but I can't help it. I just want to be inside of her. I want to feel her body beneath mine one more time. I want to hold her naked tits and fuck her until she does love me. I hate her. I wish I could hate her.

I'm still naked when the doorbell rings, and I know it's her. It's almost impossible to stay put but somehow I do it.

After five hundred and fifty-seven seconds, she leaves.

I consider jacking off a second time, but don't. Fuck her. Seriously fuck her for making me _feel_.

She's back an hour later. I turn the TV up. She gives up faster this time. I'm an idiot for thinking that she could ever love me. The world doesn't work that way.

I move to the window to watch her walk away from me. But she is nowhere. There is only black land and a mansion taunting me in the distance.

I cross the room and swing the front door open before I can stop myself. And there she is, sitting on the brick step with her hair hanging down her back.

She startles, accusing me with her eyes despite a smile, before standing. "Hey."

"Hey."

"Didn't you hear me knocking?" Her smile fades. I want to hurt her as much as she hurt me.

"I didn't feel like getting up."

"Oh?" she asks, eyebrows raised.

"Did you want something?"

"Edward are you okay? I came by earlier."

"I'm fine."

She looks at me like I'm a liar. "Well, can I come in?"

"If you want." I walk away, leaving the door open. I don't want her to leave but I can't even look at her.

The TV is on and I pretend to care about it. I lie down on the couch, pulling the green and white knit blanket over me. My mother made it. I think.

It takes Bella longer than it should to come in. I try my absolute best not to look in her direction.

She eventually sits near my feet. I don't move over.

"What are you watching?"

"A movie."

We stare at the TV without speaking. Until she's about to burst. "What's your _problem_, Edward?"

_You are my problem. You are every last one of my fucking problems._

"I don't have one."

I can feel her eyes on me. "You're lying."

"I don't know why you're _here_." I'm being completely honest.

She still looks at me accusingly, as if I have somehow wronged her in some unforgivable way. As if I was the one to say those words while we were covered in smoke and ash.

She shakes her head. "So, what... you're just done with me, just like that? No explanation, no anything?"

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Then _explain_ it to me," she nearly begs.

"There's nothing to explain."

"Is it because of dinner? I know my dad is a jerk, but..."

"I don't care about your _dad_, Bella."

"Then _what_?"

"Then _nothing_."

The seconds tick past and I want her to leave, but I'm so afraid that she's going to leave. And never come back.

"I guess I'll see you around then." Her voice sounds strange. Like she's choking or drowning or dying.

She stands to leave, and I have to say something. "For the record, I'm not in love with you either," I spit at her. I don't look at her when I say it. It's easier to lie to the TV.

She's completely silent, and I have to look.

Her eyes are trained on the door. She's chewing on her lip and picking at her fingernails. I'm staring.

And I think she's going to cry.

I want to take it back and lock it up.

She wipes a tear from her cheek. And then another. I made her _cry_.

I got what I wanted. But it still feels like I'm the one getting clobbered.

I want to cry too but I don't. I'm on my feet. I'm in her face.

"Don't touch me."

But I have to. I hold her hips, my face so close to hers.

"I said _don't touch me_."

The fire in her eyes is enough to make me listen. I move my hands to the wall behind her, caging her in without touching her.

She turns away from me, refusing to look me in the eye. I wish she knew that even when she does, I have no idea what she's thinking.

"Tell me what to say, Bella."

"I think you've said enough."

"I'm _sorry_," I say against her cheek. "Please don't cry."

But this only makes her cry more. It makes me want to die.

"Tell me how to fix it," I beg.

She won't talk to me. She is hard as nails and I don't know her.

"Bella, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. _Please_."

She keeps shaking her head. "I'm just the rich virgin who lived next door, right? You just wanted to get me to fall for you and then fuck me to be able to say you did."

"Bella..."

"Well, congratulations because you got exactly what you wanted."

_No._

"That was never what I wanted!" She jumps at my tone, her eyes darting to mine and staying there.

I can't stop staring at her lashes as she blinks the tears away. I need to touch her.

I press my forehead to hers and try to breathe her in. "That was never how I saw you. That was _never_ who you were to me."

_You have to believe me._

"Then tell me. Tell me what's wrong," she cries. "Why does it feel like it's over?"

I don't know if I can say it out loud. I don't know if I can. But I think I have to.

I hold her face in my hands.

_You have to know that I've loved you since you were a stranger. You have to know that much._

"You said... you said you didn't love me." I look away. I have no choice. When I look back, she's shaking her head. But I know what I heard.

"You think I don't love you, Edward? You think I don't think about you every second of every day? You think that doesn't scare me half to death?"

"But you said..."

"I know what I said!"

I don't understand.

"We've never said those words to each other. And my father... did you hear him? Did you hear the way he was talking to me? Like you were somehow beneath me?"

"I heard him."

"He took something that was supposed to be ours. He stomped on it with his malevolence."

"I don't know what that means." I don't.

"Well, he doesn't know what kind of man you are, Edward."

All I can focus on is that she thinks I'm a man.

"He doesn't care to know because he's already decided. And he's _wrong_."

I need her closer. "What kind of _man_ am I?" I ask, running my hands down her sides, letting them rest on her waist.

She looks up at me through watery eyes. "You're honest and you're brave. You're beautiful."

"I'm not _beautiful_."

"I don't care what you think. You're all of those things and that's why I love you, even when I don't want to."

I shake my head.

"Edward, I love you."

"You can't." She can't.

"Why not?"

There are a thousand reasons. "I don't know."

"You don't get to decide." She puts her hand over her chest. "This is mine."

"I never wanted to fuck you to say I did." _You were always so much more than that. Don't you know? _"I never..."

"Then what? Tell me, Edward."

"I need to kiss you." It's all that I know. "Is that allowed?"

She doesn't answer. And if she leaves right now I will die. My heart will stop beating forever.

I close my eyes. _Please let me kiss you_. _Please_.

I count the seconds, until I can feel the warmth of her breath on my face.

She said she loves me. She can't walk away now.

And then I can feel her lips. Her sweet, gentle lips as she kisses my eyes and my cheeks and the scruff on my chin.

"I love you," she whispers. I don't dare say it back.

I let her kiss me on every inch of my face until I can't stand it any longer and my mouth crashes into hers. We are lips and teeth and tongue.

My hands are no longer my own. They are all over her. I can't stop and I don't want to.

She _loves_ me. I don't even care that her reasons aren't real.

"I need you so much," she tells me. And that's all it takes for me to begin stripping her naked. To throw her shirt to the floor followed by my own.

Her skin is so hot and perfect and soft. How is she so fucking soft?

I kiss her like she's my only reason to live. She kisses me back and if I were her only reason, we'd live forever.

I push her up against the pink wallpaper, pinning her to the wall with my hips. Her fingers trace along the edge of my jeans. I feel like a runaway train.

My pants are around my ankles. I think I put them there.

"Edward, slow down."

Slow down.

"You don't want to?"

"Just... slow down."

"Okay."

Maybe she doesn't need me the same way that I need her.

I look her in the eye as I pull my jeans back up. Slowly. As I button them. Slowly.

When I reach for my shirt, she grabs it before tossing it away.

And we just stare at each other. Shirtless. Surrounded by the pink walls and carpet and ugly furniture.

She places her hand on my chest. Her fingers against my skin are the only reassurance I need right now.

Her hands are replaced by her lips as she starts kissing me. I want her to kiss me forever. I want her to kiss me until everything around us burns to the ground.

And when she stops, I think I die a little. Until I see what she's doing. I stare while she takes off her bra. And this is nothing like the first time. This isn't in the dark, under the covers, three beers deep.

Her tits are pale and perfect. I want to feel them in my palms and against my cheek and in my mouth.

She fidgets with her hair and tries to cover herself. It's strange to realize that she's nervous. She doesn't know how beautiful she is. She doesn't know how much I want every piece of her.

One day she'll know. One day.

I brush her hair away from her chest, resting my lips on her perfect shoulder. I can hear and feel and taste her heartbeat. She kisses my face, soft and gentle. Like she did in the star thistle.

And then she's kissing my lips. And we've never kissed like this before. Her tongue is so slow and deliberate. She loves me. Her hands stroke up and down my back and I almost want to cry. Like a fucking pussy.

I want to fuck her and have her know that she is so much more than the girl I kiss. The girl I fuck. The girl I love.

I feel very naked.

It's like drowning in the open air.

At some point she leads me over to the couch. It's all in slow motion. She lies on top of me, between my legs and I'm so fucking hard. She knows. She has to know.

I feel too much. I might explode.

I need these jeans to be off. Hers and mine.

She brushes the hair from my forehead. I wish she'd always look at me this way. Like I'm more important than anyone else could ever be.

"You love me?" I ask, barely loud enough for her to hear.

"Yeah," she blushes.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah," she says against my lips.

_You shouldn't love someone who is going to ruin you._

"I loved you first." It's the closest I can get to saying it out loud.

"That can't be true." She's smiles, her eyes shining. "You were walking down the middle of the street with your back to me. There's no way that you could have seen me coming."

I will let her believe that she was first. She can have that much.

"I want to kiss you naked," I tell her, biting her lower lip.

She laughs a little, but I'm serious.

Her hands reach between us as she kisses me, unbuttoning her jeans and then mine.

We peel them off slowly, our mouths pushing and pulling against each other the whole time.

I want to show her in a hundred ways how much I love her. I want her to feel it and remember forever.

And when I'm finally naked, and she's in nothing but her underwear, her warm body rubbing up against mine, there is nothing more important than the two of us.

"I need you too," I tell her, my hands running up and down her smooth, smooth legs.

_I will always need you._

It's so undeniably true.

And then the whole world comes crashing down when I remember her speech from the last time. "Bella, I don't have anything."

"It's okay." She doesn't even think about it.

"Are you sure?" _Please be sure_.

She reaches down, taking me in her hand and _please be sure_. I want to be inside of her. More than I've ever wanted anything.

She teases me against the fabric of her underwear.

And then she's somehow naked. And it's a different kind of teasing. It's only now that I notice everything about her. Like I'm seeing her for the first time.

I can't get enough of her shoulder. And the way it's covered in freckles.

I trace along her collarbone and down her arm. I kiss her elbow and keep going until I reach her hand. I kiss every last one of her knuckles.

She runs her hands through my hair as her body begins to move against me again. Her fingers find my scar before she grabs the back of my neck.

"Fuck, you feel good," I moan, trying to keep my eyes open. _Don't stop touching me._

I can feel how much she wants me.

With her tongue tangled up in mine, I let her take control. She continues to writhe above me until I'm starting to slip inside of her.

We hold eye contact as she moves just enough to lose the connection, and it's almost cruel. When it happens a second time, I can't be responsible for the sounds that leave my mouth.

I watch her face and she knows exactly what she's doing to me. Because I think she feels what I feel.

I watch her face. And I love that face.

The third time, she lets it happen. I push into her slowly. So goddamn slowly. I watch her mouth go wide and it's almost enough to kill me.

And when I'm buried inside of her, she starts kissing me again like before. Kissing me like she loves me. And I don't think this is fucking.

I start to move without meaning to. And then she's moving with me, her hips straddling mine.

"I don't know how to do this," she admits, her cheeks all flushed and pretty. She's so fucking pretty and she doesn't even know.

"Does it feel good?"

She nods, her mouth parted, and it takes everything I have not to pound into her.

"Just be with me, Bella. Just be with me."

I run my thumb over her bottom lip and she starts to move again. Slowly. So torturously slowly.

Her tits are so fucking sexy, I have to feel them in my mouth. And the sounds she makes when my tongue is against her nipple, I almost come undone.

We find a rhythm, moving together effortlessly. Like the ocean. What I imagine it to be like.

She's quiet when I want to hear her.

I keep saying her name. Until she's saying mine too. And the sound of her moaning my name makes me feel so alive.

_I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry._

We rock together on that couch, her body above mine, for what seems like an eternity.

She starts moving faster and I swear I can feel her losing control. I can _feel_ her.

Her hooded eyes stay on mine and it's almost like I can see in her eyes what she sees in me. And for a split second I feel like that man.

I can feel it and see it and breathe it.

She sounds like she can't get enough air. And maybe we're drowning.

With my hands on her ass, I watch her lose control. She's more beautiful and more mine than she's ever been.

She stills before collapsing onto my chest with the full weight of her body.

And this time, I don't have to wonder if it was good for her.

She kisses along my neck as she starts to move again and I'm so close it's almost torture.

My hips move with her and I want to fuck her until the day I die. I want to fuck, fuck, fuck her.

I want it to last forever.

I can't ever live without her.

"You fuck so good," I grunt against her tits. "So, so good."

I try to be gentle with her, my fingers grasping at the flesh along her spine. I want to live in her skin, shatter her bones and feel her heart beating from the inside.

I can't think. I just move. Until we're upright against the couch cushions. And I'm pressing her to them.

With her hair sticking to her skin and her hands clinging to my ribs, I stare into her eyes and I'm begging. "Don't ever leave me," I pant just before I lose myself inside of her.

_Fuck me. Love me. Fuck me. Love me. _

_Love me. Love me. Love me. Don't ever, ever leave me._

She whispers against my mouth. "I'll love you forever, Edward Cullen." And I'm almost certain she means it.

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N:**

**I posted a little early because I plan on being all about the Golden Globes on Sunday. I haven't even planned my snacks yet. I'm so behind.**

**Susan and Kim made this a thousand times better. Honestly, a thousand times. They're really good to me and I love them.**

**CC gave me freckles and other ~things. And Peri reminded me to slow down. **

**Hopefully I'll see you in a little over a week with 17 :)**


	17. Secrets

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: SECRETS

_The Town_

_Before_

* * *

I am lost. I am cold. I am alone.

Bella has never once locked me out of the house. It's not in her nature. I hate what I have turned her into.

I slide down the door into a heap of defeat instead of knocking. Hands in my hair, I want to blow this house to the ground.

My fingers start to go numb and my whole body shakes, from the cold or this reality, I'm not sure. Slumped against the door, I am the blue-eyed man. I don't want to be him.

I can't stay here on this splintered wood all night. I need to tell her what happened. I need to beg her forgiveness. I need too many things.

I'm on my feet and down the porch steps, running around to the back of the house. She always leaves the window cracked open after doing the dishes. Standing on the spigot for the garden hose, I pry the screen off the kitchen window above the sink and let it fall to the dirt.

After several failed attempts, I'm in the kitchen, battered and bruised.

The house is dark and all I want to do is go to her. I want her to wrap me up in her warmth and promise me that everything will be fine.

I take the stairs slowly and purposefully, convinced that the door to our bedroom is locked too.

One hand on the old wood, the other on the doorknob, I don't dare turn it. Flashes of the blue-eyed man linger behind my eyes and refuse to leave.

I close my eyes and hold my breath as I turn the knob. It doesn't catch and the relief is paralyzing. I hold the door knob perfectly still until I can't stand it any longer.

I open the door just a crack, enough to see her asleep in our bed, the side of her face covered in shadows. Even with the creak of the worn out hinges she doesn't wake, her features limp and innocent as she sleeps on her stomach.

And I just stare at her for the longest time because I can't believe she married me and she's still here.

I kick off my shoes and then my pants before crawling into bed. She still doesn't stir, breathing peacefully against her pillow. I bring my face right up to hers without actually touching her.

I watch her as she starts to fidget in her sleep before she abruptly turns away from me. I'm no longer sure if she's asleep or awake. Either way, she turned away from me when all I want is for her to pull me close. I know I don't deserve it, but I have made a life on wanting things I do not deserve.

Staring up at the ceiling, I want to be better. I want to do better. I ignore the pills that are calling me from the bathroom and eventually sleep shows me some mercy.

I wake in a cold sweat, my hands searching for my wife. She's not here. Her side of the bed is cold. The wrinkled sheets are the only proof I have that she was here at all.

I rub the sleep from my eyes and make my way downstairs, expecting to find her with a cup of coffee and the morning paper.

There is a note instead.

_I went to the beach to clear my head. Bella._

I run my fingers over her handwriting, wishing that I could follow her. I could take a cab or a bus. But she didn't say which beach. She wants to be alone.

I stare at her name. And the way she signed it. Like I wouldn't know who wrote the note. Like she's not the only person in my life.

I resist the urge to crumple the paper and throw it.

I spend the day prying up the old baseboards that she wants to replace in our bedroom. There must be hundreds of nails.

An hour of manual labor and I need something to take the edge off. I dig through my hiding place in the bathroom and swallow just one.

My phone buzzes from the bedroom. I swallow another.

I check my phone before I have a chance to imagine all of the things that the text might say.

_I'll be back in the morning._

She'll be back. In the morning.

The thought of sleeping alone for the first time in forever makes me want to swallow more than a couple of pills. I throw my phone, but the sound of it hitting the wall doesn't take any of it away.

I sit on the porch, staring at the driveway. The crows have flocked to the tree in our yard, filling the air with their screaming. They are so black that I can't see their eyes or their feathers. I hate them.

"What do you want?" I scream. They only shout louder, flapping their wings without taking flight. As soon as the sun is down, they disappear into the night.

I toss and turn in our huge bed, her absence consuming every bit of me. I have dreams of drowning in the ocean, being pulled under by the giant waves.

I wake with a pounding headache. My entire body aches, but nothing hurts more than waking up alone. _I'll be back in the morning._

I lie in bed, looking up at the ceiling. I wonder where she went. Where she slept. If she'll ever sleep in this bed again.

I need just one pill to get me through.

I walk to the bathroom, every step echoing in this drafty house. And then I hear a noise from downstairs and I freeze. She's here. She's _home_.

I stare at my reflection in the mirror. I look like shit. I pull the drawer open, but I don't look. I just stand there with my hand on the loose knob, staring at myself. I close it abruptly and leave the bathroom before I change my mind.

Standing at the top of the stairs, I can see her sitting at the kitchen table with her back to me. I walk down the stairs slowly, so relieved that she's here and so afraid of what she's going to say to me.

Her hands lie flat on the newspaper, framing the headline.

_Homeless man found dead behind Third Street Bakery_

I watch the side of her face as the tears start to spill. I watch her features crumple and fold. She startles when my hand touches her shoulder. And it almost breaks me.

Her eyes rimmed with red, she looks up at me, and it's too big of a burden to bear. Her voice is barely a whisper. "His name was Carl. I used to buy him a loaf of bread when I'd see him. The sourdough was his favorite."

The sourdough.

It's the first thing she's said to me since I walked out the front door two nights ago. _The sourdough was his favorite._

It's the first thing she's said and I hate him.

I hate myself more.

She brushes the tears away before standing, her eyes filled with an apology that I don't deserve.

"Please don't cry."

I don't ask here where she slept or who she was with even though not knowing is eating me alive.

"Bella, I have a problem," I blurt out.

She nods. She thinks she understands but she doesn't understand. I am not the husband who drinks too much on weekends and should stay away from hard liquor. I am so much worse than the man she sees.

"I was thinking a twelve step program. I can go with you if you want," she tries to reassure me.

I shake my head because the words in my mind sound too stupid.

"There's no shame in getting help." She looks so sad, but so hopeful.

She keeps talking but I don't hear her.

I don't know how to do this, so I just blurt it out. "Bella, I'm having a problem with some pills."

She flinches at the word pills, like it's poisonous. "_What_ pills?"

"The ones for my back injury." I can no longer look at her. The seconds tick past and I'm glad I don't have to see her face.

"Edward, that was ages ago. You said your back was fine. Your prescription ran out _years_ ago..."

"I know."

She reaches out and grabs my chin, like a mother does to her child. She wants my eyes and I know that I owe her that much. She is looking for the truth and she doesn't believe what she sees standing in front of her.

I wait and I wait for her to walk right out that door.

_See me. Save me. Please._

"Why didn't you tell me?" she asks, her voice crushed beyond recognition.

_I'm sorry._

"Edward, why?"

"I didn't know how. I thought you would leave if you ever found out. I thought you would leave."

"Is that what you want?" she asks, wide-eyed.

"Bella..."

"You're my _husband_, Edward."

"I don't know what that means."

"I know," she tells me. She knows.

"I'm going to stop. I'm stopping today."

"You should call your doctor."

"Bella, I can _do_ this," I promise her.

She won't stop touching me. Like I'm her sick child. "How often have you been taking them?"

"I don't know. But I'm stopping. I promise."

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not." _I'm not. _

She bursts into tears and I don't know what to do. So I hold on to her as tight as I can. Like I'm squeezing the life out of her. It only makes her cry harder. I start frantically kissing her face even though it's probably the exact wrong thing to do.

"I feel like I don't know you," she whimpers.

"You _know_ me, Bella."

"Do I?"

"You know me."

I kiss her mouth. I expect her not to kiss me back but she does. She kisses me back and it's too desperate to make either of us feel better.

"I'm sorry," I tell her again.

We find ourselves sitting on the floor of the dining room. The wallpaper peeling all around us.

She makes breakfast and even though I have no appetite, I eat everything on my plate. The photo of the blue-eyed man on the front page of the newspaper stares at me. I want to rip his face in half.

My mind is filled with warring thoughts. I want to laugh and cry and scream.

The crows are back, screaming and yelling among the branches. I wish I had a shotgun.

I can hear Bella upstairs, rifling through the drawers in the bathroom. My heart feels like it's going to stop beating any moment. I should tell her about all seven of my hiding places. I should tell her.

But they're mostly empty anyway.

The toilet flushes and I can hear it through the whole house. If only sins could be flushed away. I feel the rage building up inside of me, taking over my thoughts. I make a mental catalog of every last pill in this house.

The pipes go quiet, and there is no longer any noise from upstairs. Everything is silent except for the crows. I leave her alone. Until I can't anymore.

The door to our bedroom is open. She sits at the edge of our bed and I can tell something is wrong the second I see her. Something is about to rip me open.

I kneel down in front of her, hands on her hands.

"What is it?"

"I know the timing is probably terrible," she says to her hands, like I'm not even in the room.

"Bella, what's going on?"

"I have a secret too." The corner of her mouth curls up. "I think I'm pregnant."

No. My hands shake and I wish I could shove the words back in her mouth.

"You're not," I dismiss her cruelly.

"You don't know that."

_I do know._

I don't know how to do this to her. But it's already been done.

I watch her face. Her eyes lock with mine and she thinks I'm trying to take it in. She's smiling and I don't want to be touching her anymore.

I am up and pacing, hands pulling at my hair, and my heart won't stop pounding away.

Everything fucking hurts and I need one of those pills. I need more than one.

"Edward, I'm _pregnant_."

It's only now that I notice her hands and the way they are covering her stomach protectively.

"Bella, we've been through this before. We've been right _here_."

With a look of desperation, she clings to the fabric of her sweater. "I know but this is different. I can tell this time."

"You're not pregnant," I insist.

She doesn't speak for a moment, her eyes turning cold. "You're wrong. I _am_."

"You're not."

"You don't know that!" She shrieks at me, the thunder in my chest getting louder.

"I got a vasectomy alright?" I spit at her.

She shakes her head a little, a disbelieving scowl forming on her face. "You _what_?" she whispers.

"I'm sorry."

"You're _sorry_?"

"I didn't know how to tell you."

I tell her _this_ truth for the first time. There is no going back. I have taken it all away from her. I have taken _everything_. Her eyes are hell on earth and they will never forgive.

There is so much that I want to say. So much more than this confession. But I can no longer force myself to speak.

_I couldn't tell you. I couldn't be who you wanted me to be. I couldn't say no. I couldn't break you. I couldn't be more than this man._

Her face is in her hands and I hate what I've done.

She stood by me when I told her a different truth. She has to stand by me through this one too. She has to.

Sitting in the center of our bed with her knees up to her chest, her sobs fill the room. I want to pry her fingers off of her eyes and force her to look at me. But I can't move. I can't fucking move.

Her cries turn to screams and I'm the reason. I am her hurt and her rage.

And although she is perfect, even in her anger, I can't survive knowing that her pain is because of _me_.

* * *

**-HL-**


	18. Sometimes

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: SOMETIMES

_The Town_

_After_

* * *

I am brave. Bella was always the brave one. Maybe we can both be brave.

I sit on the park bench watching Wren as she digs in the dirt next to the sandbox. She's already filthy and we've only been here for seven minutes.

I try not to stare at the parking lot. She said she'd be here. It was her idea.

"Hey stranger," Bella calls out as she approaches.

I jump to my feet. "Hey." Stranger.

I hug her and she hugs me back. When we let go, she holds on to the edge of my shirt for half a second and I feel like a teenager.

"You look good, Edward."

I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say thank you or return the compliment or ignore it entirely. I hold the small bouquet of flowers out to her. She startles from my sudden, awkward movement.

It's the first time I've given her flowers.

She smiles, shaking her head like she doesn't quite believe it.

"Thank you. For the flowers."

Wren comes running over shouting about something she found in the dirt. She stops in her tracks when she sees Bella. Approaching cautiously, she eyes Bella like she's not trustworthy. And I wonder why she's never looked at me that way.

"Wren, do you remember Bella?"

She doesn't answer, she just stares at her. I'm embarrassed by her lack of manners.

"It's nice to meet you, Wren."

She still doesn't answer, poking her tongue around inside her cheek while she stares Bella down.

"She's shy around strangers." It's a total lie and I know it the second I say it. "That's not really true. She's not shy at all she just, I don't know..."

I turn to Wren, begging her to save me. When she finally decides to speak she asks, "Are you Edward's _wife_?" And I want to die.

"Wren, we talked about this."

Bella places her hand on my arm. "Edward, it's okay."

She turns to Wren and I wish we weren't doing this. "I used to be, once upon a time." And the way she smiles, like that time in her life wasn't consumed by my addiction.

"Once upon a time?" Wren asks.

"Do you know what that means?"

"Of course I do. I'm not a baby."

"No, no you're not a baby. How old are you anyway, eleven?" Bella winks.

Wren laughs. "No, I'm seven."

"_Wren_."

"Okay, I'm five. But I'm _almost_ seven. Do you want to see something cool?" she asks in her husky little voice.

"Always," Bella responds, like they're old friends.

"I found _four_ roly polies," she boasts, uncurling her fist to show off her treasures. "If you hold real still, they unroll and start walking around on your hand."

Bella holds her hand out and I watch Wren pinch the little bugs into Bella's palm. She stops suddenly, one of the roly polies between her fingers. She looks like she's about to cry. "I think this one's dead." She holds it out to me and by the looks of it, it's _long_ dead.

"It's okay, Wren. That happens sometimes," I try to explain.

"You _always_ say that and I don't even know what that means."

"It means it's a part of life. Even if it's sad." I can feel Bella's eyes on me, but I don't look in her direction.

"Can we bury her?" Wren asks.

I look to Bella for guidance. "I think that would be a nice thing to do, Wren."

"We have to find a good spot so the squirrels won't eat her up."

"Do squirrels eat roly polies?" I whisper to Bella.

"I have no idea," she whispers back.

We follow Wren to the grouping of trees that line the park. She picks up a large stick and starts poking around the tree trunks, not satisfied with what she's finding. She insists on wearing rain boots, even in the summer. It's endearing in moments like this.

"She's pretty special," Bella says as we watch Wren search for the perfect tree.

I don't dare look at her. "Yeah. She is."

Eventually Wren squats down and starts digging a hole at the base of a tree with her stick. It's the only willow tree I've ever seen in this town. I think Bella and I both stop breathing.

She shouts and motions for us to come over. Neither of us moves or says anything. Bella starts walking first. And I guess that's the way it's always been with us. I run to catch up instead of following behind.

We stand side by side as Wren covers the roly poly with dirt. "Now you can go up to Heaven and be with your family," she tells the little bug. "Don't be scared."

She wipes her dirty hands on her shorts and I wish I knew what to say.

I carry Wren back to our bench, her head resting on my shoulder, her rain boots smearing dirt all over my clothes.

"I brought you something, Wren," Bella tells her. She talks to her like she knows her.

Wren eyes her suspiciously. I can only imagine the number of times her mother has told her the same thing.

"I heard you like princesses."

"I do," she smiles, her eyes shining.

Bella pulls a sparkling, plastic crown out of her purse. It's the most god-awful thing I've ever seen.

Wren stares at it, like she doesn't believe it could possibly be hers. She runs her fingers over the fake stones like she's never been given anything in her entire life.

Bella helps her put it on before Wren runs off toward the playground screeching with excitement.

"Bella, you didn't have to do that."

"I know."

We watch Wren go back and forth across the monkey bars a hundred times, her crown hanging from her hair.

"I wasn't sure if you were going to come alone."

"Edward..."

"I know." I know.

She's looking at me so strangely. "What?"

"It hurts a little to see you with her."

I swallow the lump in my throat and try to figure out what to say.

"You're good with her."

"Thank you."

"I see you in her, you know. You've taught her a lot."

I shake my head because I don't know how to take that. "She's taught me far more than I could ever teach her."

"What has she taught you?" Bella asks, not because she doesn't believe me but because she genuinely wants to know.

I think about it first, because I don't want to get this wrong. "She taught me how to take care of someone."

She places her hand on top of mine. "She taught you far more than that. She taught you how to _love_ someone." I don't know how to swallow or breathe.

Wren appears out of nowhere. "Are you gonna kiss?"

"No," Bella tells her before I even have time to process the question. I don't know why I thought this was a good idea. We are no longer touching and I feel the loss everywhere.

Bella fidgets with her hair. "Where should we go for lunch?" Her voice sounds strange.

Wren whisper-shouts in Bella's ear. "Edward made a picnic."

"A picnic?"

"We can go somewhere if you want." The picnic idea suddenly seems ridiculous.

"No, a picnic sounds nice."

"Where's the picnic basket?" Wren asks, looking around.

"I didn't bring one."

"But you said we were having a picnic," she challenges me.

"We are. I promise."

I unfold an old blanket and lay it down on the sparse grass. Bella helps to smooth it out and I wish I knew what she was thinking.

I pull out the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that I made this morning from a paper bag, shrugging in embarrassment. "I wasn't sure what to make."

"Peanut butter and jelly is a favorite."

I can't help but smile wide. I don't care how stupid I look.

Wren eyes me. "Did you brush your hair today?" she asks, her eyebrows arched as high as they go.

I can feel my face redden. "Yes, did _you_?" I ask back while raking my fingers through my hair.

"You're making that face again," she scolds me.

"What face?" I realize after I ask that I shouldn't have.

"The one where you look like you have to poop." She immediately covers her mouth with her hands, remembering our conversation this morning about bathroom words. This would be a lot easier if I could muzzle her.

Bella's hand covers her own mouth, her eyes giving away the laugh that she's suppressing.

"Can we please just eat?"

Wren nods her head and I can tell she's sorry.

"Thank you for lunch, Edward."

"Um, you're welcome. I'm sorry, I forgot napkins."

Bella reaches into her bag and pulls out those wet wipes that they have at grocery stores by the carts. She wipes Wren's hands clean and then offers me one.

I just stare at her like an idiot. She holds it out for what seems like an eternity before I take it.

Two bites into her sandwich and Wren is already off and back to the playground.

Bella and I finish our peanut butter and jelly and this is so weird. To be sitting on a blanket in the park having a picnic with my wife. Jasper says I need to stop calling her that.

She peeks into the paper bag and gives me a questioningly look.

"Wren picked it out at the store," I try to explain.

"Peanut butter and jelly and cake," she laughs. But I don't think she's laughing at me.

When I told Wren she could pick out a cake from the bakery, she wanted to know if it was my birthday. I didn't know how to explain a sobriety birthday to a five-year-old.

Bella clears her throat. "What are we celebrating?"

I take out the grocery store cake and struggle with the plastic case for a good several minutes before I realize that I forgot to bring forks. "Shit."

I don't answer her question because I don't know how. "I forgot forks."

Wren comes running back. I swear she can smell chocolate. "I wanted to get candles but Edward said it's not that kind of birthday."

I don't want to look at Bella but I do it anyway. She's staring at me like I'm a stranger, or maybe like she's proud. I don't know. She glances at her watch before I have time to decide. "I should get going."

"Please, please stay," Wren begs.

"Stay." I try not to sound as desperate as the five-year-old.

"I have to get home," Bella explains, her eyes trained on mine.

"Of course." Of course.

"It was very nice to meet you, Wren."

Wren blinks at her, her face expressionless. Just as I'm about to remind her that it's rude not to answer people, she tackles Bella in a hug. Bella is just as startled, but she wraps her arms around the little girl named after a bird and hugs her back. Wren looks up at Bella longingly and something inside of me breaks in two.

"You smell good and you have pretty hair," Wren tells her. And it's about all I can take.

"Likewise," Bella winks at her.

Wren wrinkles up her nose. "What's _likewise_?"

"It means you smell good and have pretty hair too."

Wren runs her hands over her tangled mess of hair and smiles. And I'm so grateful to Bella for giving her that moment.

"Alright, Wren, Bella has to get home."

Wren lets go of her reluctantly. With her head tilted to the side she asks, "Where do you live? Edward's house has stairs that squeak."

Bella doesn't laugh nervously the way I do. "And old wood floors and wallpaper in the dining room," she tells Wren.

"Yeah, that's his house!" she laughs.

"If you go in the bathroom upstairs there's a secret door with a tiny little ironing board inside," Bella tells her. Wren starts giggling even though I'm pretty sure she has no idea what an iron is, let alone an ironing board.

Bella and I lock eyes for a second and it's heavy and light. I want to apologize for so many things.

She looks back down at Wren. "Thank you for the picnic."

"It was Edward's picnic," she corrects her.

And then she's looking at me again and I want to disappear. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," I manage, before I need to stare at the ground.

We hug goodbye and I hold on a moment too long. I can't help it. She feels even better than I remember. But when I try to let go, _she_ is the one holding on to me.

From the park bench, Wren and I watch Bella walk, flowers in hand, to her car. We sit together quietly, and she's the best person to have silent conversations with. She leans against me, curling her feet up under her like a cat.

I can remember being terrified that Bella was going to look at me one day and see me for the failure that I was. I was so afraid that she would see the liar, the addict, the thief.

Today, for the first time, I _wanted_ her to see me. I don't know if she did.

I wonder where she lives, if she still drinks her morning coffee at the kitchen table with the newspaper. Somehow I doubt it. I'm not the only one whose life has changed.

I try not to think about her anymore but I'm no good at that game.

Luckily there is a little girl by my side to distract me. "Do you think Bella is likewise?" Wren wonders.

"What?"

"Do you think she's _likewise_?" she repeats, a little exasperated with me.

"I don't know what that means."

"Do you think she smells good and has pretty hair?"

I can't help but laugh. "Um, yes, I would have to say that Bella is definitely _likewise_."

"I _knew_ it!" she shouts, grinning from ear to ear. "You should marry her again."

"_Wren_."

"She thinks you're likewise too. I saw her smell your hair."

She smelled my hair. I don't know what to do with that.

"You're always smiling about her," Wren says, reaching up to touch my face.

"You always smile about her too, you know," I tease her, covering her little face with my hand.

She swats me away and shrugs. "She's my friend."

I poke her in the ribs and tickle her silly until she's begging for mercy. "You're gonna break my crown!" she shouts.

"Alright, alright, I should take you home."

"Let's watch the birds for two more minutes."

So we watch the birds. For a lot longer than two minutes.

She starts to whine as I pack up our things. "Alright, someone's cranky. Definitely time to get you home."

She scowls at me and then gets really serious before she tells me, "Sometimes when my mommy is really cranky, she puts a needle in her arm to be better."

I feel like I've had the wind knocked out of me. "What did you say?"

She holds on to her elbow and looks up at me with eyes that could break a man. "Does that happen sometimes, Edward? Because it's part of life because it happens sometimes?"

My heart is beating like a ticking bomb.

"Does it happen sometimes?" she nearly begs.

I pick her up and hold her tight. "No, Baby. It doesn't happen sometimes."

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N:**

**To Susan for the roly poly. I can't handle how smart you are. To Kim for noticing every word. Thanks for being my people.**

**I know, I know, second update in a week. It's amazing what I can accomplish when I don't have to work. Thanks to those of you who are sticking with this story.**

**I have a one shot called A Lonely Life entered in the Ho Hey contest. Go check out the entries and vote for your top three favorites. The ffn page should come up first if you google search "Ho Hey Contest". The Lumineers are a favorite band of mine. While I never thought I'd write vamp, there really is a first time for everything.**

**I hope to have the next HL chapter for you in a week :)**


	19. The Test

CHAPTER NINETEEN: THE TEST

_The Country_

_Before_

* * *

I am watching Bella cry and I don't know what I did.

School starts for her on Monday. Her senior year. This was supposed to be our last day of summer. She said she wanted to lie under the willow tree and kiss me until we couldn't breathe. I waited for her. I waited for what felt like forever.

I walked across the black ground, swung my legs over that white fence and stood on her back patio looking up at her bedroom window until I couldn't wait any longer.

I rang the doorbell four times in a row and when she opened the front door, her face blotchy and her eyes red, neither one of us said a word.

I followed her up to her bedroom and now I'm too afraid to ask what's wrong.

So I just stare at her.

And when she speaks, my heart stops beating. "I think I'm pregnant."

"_What_?"

"I'm _pregnant_."

She starts crying and I don't know what to do. "How?"

She glares at me and I can feel it in my gut. "I mean, how do you know?"

"I'm late. And I feel _weird_."

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._

I don't know what to do. I want to touch her, hug her, but I just stand here like an idiot.

"We can't have a baby, Edward," she cries. There's something in her voice that I don't recognize.

"Okay."

"We _can't_." She says it like I didn't hear her the first time.

"_Okay_," I tell her a little louder than I mean to. "Isn't there a test or something?" I pace back and forth, back and forth, my hands in my hair.

"Yeah."

"Well shouldn't we get one?"

Her eyes dart to mine. "What if it's positive?" She's afraid and I don't know how to be the brave one.

I pull at the loose string on my T-shirt. "I don't know but shouldn't we still get one?"

She nods, covering her face with her pillow. I want to wrap myself around her but I don't.

"Do they have them at the corner market?"

"I don't know."

"I'll be back," I tell her, kissing her cheek. "I'll be _right_ back."

I leave her alone to cry in her room. Because I can't bear it. Seeing her cry like that makes me want to die.

I consider driving but I don't have insurance. I'd probably get pulled over and locked up in handcuffs and then what would Bella do. So I walk. It's not that far. I've walked this road a thousand times.

I take my time getting there even though I know I should probably hurry.

She'll just take the test and then everything will be fine. She'll feel better once she sees.

The sun is too hot, making the road steam. There isn't a soul in sight. Even the birds are quiet. I could be the last living thing on earth.

Not a single car passes me on the road to the corner store. The signs are lit up and buzzing and I almost can't breathe. The bell on the door makes me want to punch something. Or someone.

I search the entire store. I refuse to ask. I find the pregnancy tests next to the condoms. There are so many. I grab two of the most expensive ones.

The clerk gives me a knowing look. "They're not for me," I lie.

She looks at me like I would be just the kind of guy to get a girl pregnant.

I motion toward the cigarettes. She knows what I like.

"One pack or two?"

"Just one."

"You're not supposed to smoke around pregnant women, you know."

"I know," I snap at her. But I didn't fucking know.

"Do you need a bag?"

"Paper." I'm not walking home with a pregnancy test in each hand. I don't care if this hick town is filled with crackheads.

I hold the crumpled paper bag in one hand as I walk, a cigarette in the other.

_What if she's pregnant?_

I try to imagine her with a round belly. I try to see her holding a baby; putting her to sleep; feeding her; dressing her. I wouldn't know what to do. But she'd know. She'd do her homework. She'd teach me.

I wonder what my father will say. I wonder what _her_ father will say.

Maybe Emmett can get me a job at the Feed and Grain. Maybe it won't be so bad.

Maybe her parents would let me move in. Maybe I could clean up my father's house and we could live there. Maybe we could get a place of our own. With our _baby_.

I've never held one. I've never seen one up close. I know they cry a lot.

She's not pregnant.

My heart is beating too fast but I don't think it's fear. It's something else. We can do this. She'll teach me.

The vultures circle overhead, waiting for something to die. The crows sit on the fence posts and scream at the sky. I wonder what has changed in the last twenty minutes.

I walk down the middle of the street and it feels like I shouldn't.

A car speeds by, honking as it passes, the sound lingering like a train whistle. And I don't want to walk in the middle of the street anymore. For the first time that I can remember. I don't want to walk in the middle of the street.

I walk the rest of the way in the dirt and it's the strangest feeling. Because I care about what happens to me. In this moment, on this day, I care.

Two cigarettes later, I take one of the pregnancy tests from the bag. I try to read the directions but I feel like I might throw up. Bella will figure it out. One little box determining the rest of our lives is too much to think about.

The horses at the Bradley farm won't look at me as I walk by. They face in every direction, refusing to see. But their ears give them away.

My shirt sticks to my back and I can smell the heat.

_What if she's pregnant?_

Sitting on the fence, staring at the horses with the backwards ears, I hold on to my cigarette until it's nothing but ash. I smoke another. And another. I throw the rest of the pack at the birds that are so black I can't see their eyes or their feathers. It's the only way I can stop myself.

The Swan house looks the same as it always does from the outside. Perfect. I don't know why I expected to walk up and see something else.

I let myself in and there's Mrs. Swan standing at the foot of the stairs. She jumps, but greets me with a smile.

"I'm afraid Bella isn't feeling well, Edward. She's in bed with a headache. She said she just wants to be left alone."

I hold up the paper bag, "I know, I brought her... something."

She tilts her head to the side and smiles without showing her teeth. "How sweet, Dear." I can't tell if she means it.

I take the stairs too quickly and I feel like I'm going to pass out. I stand in front of her closed door forever. When I turn the handle it's locked.

"Bella," I whisper. I don't recognize my own voice. "_Bella_," I try again.

The door opens slowly. I expect her to be standing there staring back at me but she's walking away before I can even see her face. She stands in front of the window with her back to me and I don't know what to do.

"I'm sorry," I tell her.

She shakes her head and I'm just thankful that she doesn't ask me what I'm sorry for. Because I don't know. I'm just sorry.

I reach out to touch her arm, but stop myself. I've never thought of her as fragile before.

She takes short breaths. It's worse than the crying.

"I can't believe I was so stupid."

I don't know what that means.

She has her arms wrapped around her ribs like she's holding herself together.

Even though I'm afraid she's going to shrug me off, I run my fingers down the back of her arm, where her shirt gives way to skin. She doesn't even move. I hold on to her elbow until eventually her hand finds mine.

I hug her so tight that I'm afraid I'm going to break her.

I press my lips to the side of her face. "Bella, tell me what to do."

She's quiet for a long time. "Don't let go."

So I don't.

I hold on to her. Until she's ready to take a pregnancy test. And when she walks into her bathroom with that paper bag, I hold my breath.

I sit on her bed. I pace. I try to stand perfectly still. The minutes pass slowly and she's taking too long. I think the box said two minutes. Or five. It's been a lot longer than five.

I can picture her sitting on the sink, afraid to tell me. I decide to knock. She doesn't answer.

I knock again. The door creaks open and there she stands, and she's not crying. I breathe out a sigh of relief.

I pull her into a hug and she hides her face against my neck before she whispers, "It's positive."

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N:**

**Long time no see. Here's the thing. I'm a lying liar who said two weeks like a hundred weeks ago. Sometimes I have the best intentions and they just go south.**

**Thank you to the usual suspects. Susan and Kim, I don't know what I did to deserve you. And to CC for giving me an ultimatum.**

**I have a handful of chapters written ahead so that I'll be able to post regularly. See you in a week. And the one after that.**

**Also, 5 week count down to summer vacation!**


	20. The Wallpaper

CHAPTER TWENTY: THE WALLPAPER

_The Town_

_After_

* * *

I am nervous and sober. It's a terrible yet proudly familiar combination.

I drive out to the beach to pass the time. I _drive_. Lately I can't get enough and I drive until the gas tank is empty and the day is gone. Today is different.

The rain starts to fall, blurring my windshield, just as I pull into the nearly empty beach parking lot. It's cold, the kind of cold that reminds me I'm alone.

I try not to worry about Wren but it's impossible. All I want to do is worry.

Bella always loved the beach. I used to tell myself I hated it. For the reasons that people hate beaches: the sand and the salt and the sweat. But I was afraid of this place. Because it felt like the end of the earth. And the ocean is more all-consuming than anything I could ever swallow.

A narrow trail leads to the sand dunes that look out at the sea. I take my shoes off, walking barefoot down the winding path. The sand is surprisingly warm despite the gray clouds.

The shore is abandoned, covered with driftwood and broken shells. The waves crash high and loud.

There's nothing quite like watching the sun go down through the cover of storm clouds, overlooking the ocean. The rain hits the waves and immediately disappears into the deep.

Wind and rain in my face, I stare out at sea until it's dark, I'm soaking wet, and I have to go.

I leave with just enough time to get back to the house and get everything ready.

Sitting in my wet clothes, the drive back takes forever. I feel sick, but I can do this. It's a long time coming.

The storm has reached town by the time I get back. Everyone on the road is acting like fucking idiots. Like they've never seen rain before.

I sit in the driveway. Bella loves the way the whole house shakes during a storm. At least she used to.

I want dinner to be ready when she gets here, and I'm running out of time. I make a run for the front porch even though I'm already soaked. The door is unlocked. It's always unlocked.

Dinner in the oven and the table set the best I know how, I shower in the old claw foot tub. I can almost feel her naked body next to me. I don't usually let myself remember, but today is about honesty and I can't help it. I don't want to.

That's not what tonight is going to be. I know that. But I still want her. Like that. And every other way you can want someone who walked away.

And now I'm hard. I can't answer the door that way, so I rub one out in the shower. And I imagine her naked skin like I'm eighteen and living in the country. It feels so fucking good. Until it's over and it's not enough.

I'm dressed. In clothes that should have been ironed. Bella will probably laugh when I answer the door. Our wedding day was the only time she saw me in anything but jeans or work coveralls.

She was supposed to be here five minutes ago. I force myself not to wait by the window. While it's not the same, I think I understand what it felt like for Wren when she waited, nose pressed to the glass. The difference is, Bella is not a junkie. Five minutes late doesn't mean she won't show.

I imagine Wren now, her face pressed to a window somewhere. But I can't think about her. Or I'll lose it.

Thinking about Bella isn't much better. My nerves are my own fear of rejection. For what I'm about to do.

And so I pace.

Jasper says I'm postponing the inevitable. He calls me a coward. He's wrong. He also says that an apology is meaningless unless it's specific. That part, he might be right about. At least I hope he's right. I can't remember the number of times _I'm sorry _came from my own mouth before I betrayed Bella's trust again and again.

She never once asked me what I was sorry for and it's a good thing because I didn't know.

I don't allow myself to count the seconds. When I hear her tires on the gravel driveway, I feel simultaneous relief and anxiety. But I have to do this.

I open the door before she rings the bell. I don't care if it makes me look over-eager.

"Hi," we say at the same time.

"Nice car," she says, motioning to the hatchback in the driveway.

"Thank you," I tell her, laughing nervously.

"Come in." Inviting her in is strange. This house was always more hers than mine.

We don't hug, even though we do sometimes. This isn't one of those times.

She hasn't stepped foot on these old wood floors since she walked straight out that door three years ago.

She scans the walls, like she's looking for something. Like she knows.

We eat dinner. In the dining room.

"You okay?" she asks.

The truth and the lie both rest on the tip of my tongue. "I want to be."

We drink sparkling water and it feels like we're teenagers on our first date.

"What did you do today?" she asks.

"I, well, I drove out to the beach."

"You hate the beach."

"I know."

She keeps smiling at me. Like I'm funny. I don't know what to say, so I smile back. I want to tell her that she has a beautiful smile, but I don't know how.

I say it anyway. "Your smile is pretty."

Her face turns red and she looks away, but she doesn't stop smiling. A laugh escapes before she covers her mouth.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing is funny."

"_Something_ is funny," I argue, smiling right along with her.

She looks over my shoulder and just when I think she's going to ignore the question, she speaks. "It looks amazing in here. It really does. I just can't believe after all of that work taking down the old wallpaper, you put up _more_ wallpaper."

I'm no longer smiling. Within seconds her expression matches mine.

"I have something to show you."

"Alright," she nods.

She watches me stand from the table and press my palm to the wallpaper.

"Come here?"

She doesn't stand, she just stares at me, and I knew this was a stupid idea. "Please," I ask, my tone softer.

But when she does stand, when she's by my side, I no longer have anything to say.

"There's a loose end you missed," she tells me quietly, motioning to the wall, her expression serious.

"I didn't miss it."

She studies the peeling edge. She's more beautiful than is fair. She'll always be beautiful. She also looks tired. And she has lines at the corner of her eyes when she smiles that never used to be there.

She wears different clothes now. Her hair isn't quite as long as she always had it. She wears no jewelry. None.

I don't know what I would do if I ever saw another man's ring on her finger. I'd like to think I could take it, but I'm not that kind of man. Clean or not, I don't know that I could _ever_ be that kind of man.

"I'm here," Bella exhales as she speaks. And I forgot what we were doing.

I tap the loose edge of wallpaper. "Go ahead, peel it off."

"Edward, it's beautiful. I'm not ripping it down."

"Please."

"Edward..."

I can feel myself unraveling. "You said that the wallpaper was the best part of old houses and you always wanted to peel it off to see what's underneath. You _said_." I'm too worked up to be embarrassed by my desperation.

She looks like she might cry and that's not what this was supposed to be. "This is different, Edward."

I start picking compulsively at the seam. She probably thinks I'm insane. But I have to do this.

"Okay, okay I'll do it," she concedes.

I exhale, heart racing, as she reaches for the paper. I watch her hands instead of her face. I watch her hands because they don't tell the story of her life. It's only when those hands stop moving, when fingertips press to her lips, that I am brave enough to look at her eyes.

"What is this?" she murmurs, her eyes wide as ever.

"It's a letter."

"Dear Bella?"

"Yeah. Dear Bella."

"Dear Bella, I'm sorry for walking in the middle of the street. I'm sorry..." Her voice catches in her throat.

"You don't have to read it out loud."

I know it by heart. It's all I know anymore.

_Dear Bella,_

_I'm sorry for walking in the middle of the street._

_I'm sorry for smoking when I told you I'd quit._

_I'm sorry for drinking when I promised I wouldn't._

_I'm sorry for the pills you knew nothing about._

_I'm sorry for every night I said I'd be home for dinner._

_I'm sorry for never taking you to the beach._

_I'm sorry for letting you sleep alone in an unlocked house._

_I'm sorry for the biggest lie and every one that came before it._

_I'm sorry for being a selfish coward._

_I'm sorry for refusing to be the man you saw in me. _

_Most of all, I'm sorry for signing over my parental rights, for missing out on her life and for leaving you to raise your daughter alone._

_I haven't figured out how to redeem myself. I'm not asking for you tell me, only to know that I'm trying._

_Love,_

_Edward_

I keep my eyes on her even though my instinct is to look away. To hide.

She wipes a tear from her cheek and I don't know if it's good or bad, but it's honest. I can see it in her face.

"You didn't call her _our_ daughter."

No. I didn't. I'm breaking the rules by talking about her at all. But I'm not sorry.

"I don't... You made it very clear that I had no right to."

She bites her lip and looks away. I wish I knew what she was thinking.

"Is that everything?" she wants to know, refusing to look at me.

That's not the response I was expecting. Or the one I was hoping for.

"Yes, I think so. Yes."

"Edward, I..."

"It's a lot to take in." It is. I know it is. I hope she knows that.

I take a step closer without meaning to. I need her proximity. Instead of backing away like I would expect her to, she studies me.

I can remember the way her hair smells and the way her cheek feels against my own.

"You don't have anything else to say to me?" she whispers. I can't stop staring at her mouth. I can remember the way she tastes and the way her lips feel against my pulse.

"I don't know what you want, Bella."

It would be so easy to lean in and kiss her right now. Easy and the most difficult thing I've ever done.

"I want to know if you regret our life."

_Of all of the things that I regret, our life is not one of them._

"I am sorry for all that I took, but I won't apologize for loving you, if that's what you're asking."

Her cheeks flush, but she doesn't look away. "Then I won't apologize for that either. I loved every part of you that you gave me." She blinks away a tear. "I used to think that made me weak, but all it really made me was human."

She starts to cry, to really cry, and I act on instinct, pulling her to me.

She holds onto the front of my shirt as I wrap her in my arms, my lips pressed to her hair. It's so easy. And it doesn't feel wrong or contrived or manipulative.

"Tell me what you're thinking, Bella."

"I was protecting her. But now... I'm not sure."

"You're not sure about what?"

"I'm not sure what I'm protecting her from."

It's too much. I know she can feel my body tense.

"Close your eyes," she tells me.

I do as she says.

Just when I think she might kiss me, she speaks. "Edward, what do you see?"

I leave my eyes closed. "I see you."

"Who am I?"

"You're a good mom, Bella." I know it's true. Even without seeing her. I don't let myself think of her as a mother very often.

"Who am I?" I ask even though I'm not sure I want to know how she sees me.

"I don't know."

That's fair.

"I used to be a man who destroyed everything good in his life. I was afraid I had destroyed you too. But I didn't. You didn't let me. You walked away. You were brave. I will always carry that. But I don't have to be that man anymore."

She nods. I want her words. I want her insight and her brilliance. "Tell me what you're thinking, Bella."

"I think that life doesn't have to be such an uphill battle."

"I'm losing the house." I don't know why I say it.

"_What_?"

"I have to be out by the end of the month."

She shakes her head. Like that will someone make it false. "You put your blood and sweat into this house, Edward." Her face twists as if she's in pain. "Our house..." she trails off.

It's easier to discuss the house than ourselves. I know exactly what I'm doing.

"I know. But Bella?"

"Yeah?"

"I have lost far, far more important things than this house."

She looks at me like she understands, but I'm not sure she could ever understand.

"Losing you and the chance to be in her life is by far my biggest regret."

She takes a step closer. She still makes my heart race and my palms sweat. She makes me want to be someone I never thought I could be.

"It feels like someone else's life when I let myself remember it. _Us_," she says, almost like it's a plea.

"I know."

"Do you think we can ever let it go? Do you think you can?"

"I'm trying, but it feels like..."

"Like what?"

I press my forehead to hers. It's so familiar. And so new.

"What does it feel like?" she whispers.

There was a time when I would refuse to tell her. There was a time when I had no way of explaining it.

"It feels like rain on the sea."


	21. The Meeting

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: THE MEETING

_The Town_

_After_

* * *

I am putting up the last sheet of wallpaper when the phone rings.

I consider not answering. Because I told myself that today would be the day I would ask her. And I'm a coward. But I don't want to be that anymore. So I drop the paper to the hardwood and run to the kitchen before she hangs up.

"Hello?"

"You sound out of breath."

If I don't ask now, I'll lose my nerve. "I was wondering if you'd like to have dinner. With me. Bella, would you like to come over for dinner?"

The line is silent and she's trying to decide how to say no.

"Dinner sounds nice."

Nice. It sounds _nice_. I grin at the phone like a fucking lunatic.

Then she laughs and even though I'm not sure why, I laugh too.

"Next Saturday?"

"I'll ask my mom."

She needs to ask her mom even though we've been out of high school for a decade. Because she's coming alone. I knew this. But it still feels like a sucker punch.

"Did you make the call, by the way?"

"Yeah. They said they would be sending out a social worker."

"Good. I'm glad."

She can ask about Wren, but I can't ask. I want to, but I don't know how.

Jasper says I torture myself too much.

Someone is banging on my front door. Probably Jehovah's Witnesses. They won't leave me the fuck alone.

"Will you hold on a second? Just a second. Someone's at the door."

"Yeah. Sure." But I can hear the hesitancy in her voice. She probably wants to know what kind of people knock on my door.

"I'll be right back."

"I'll be here."

I set the phone down on the counter and stomp to the door. But it's not a poor soul trying to sell me God.

"Alice?"

"Edward, they _took_ her!"

"What?"

"They took Wren!"

"_Who _took her?"

"Child Protective Services."

No. The guilt is immediate, attaching itself to my bones.

"Took her where?"

"I don't know. Wherever they take kids. To one of those foster homes?"

I did this. My heartbeat is too heavy. I'm suffocating. I'm fucking suffocating.

It feels like withdrawal.

"How can you not know?" I shout at her. "What did they say?"

"I don't know. Rose was screaming and they called the cops on her and then they arrested her for assaulting an officer and Jesus fuck, Edward, what am I supposed to do? This is all your fault! I told you to leave things be."

My hands are curling around each other like claws.

"Okay, we'll just call them and find out what's going on with Wren."

"What about Rose?"

"What _about_ her? Who the fuck cares about Rose right now, Alice?"

"She's my _sister_."

"And Wren is a _child_."

"I know, okay? I know."

"Your sister can rot in jail for all I care."

She looks like she's about to cry and while I don't want to understand, I feel like I'm going to cry too.

"Maybe you can take her?"

"Alice..."

"What? Wren loves you."

_Don't say love._

"Yeah, well it's not as simple as that."

"Then make it that simple."

"I _can't_."

"You're a selfish bastard," she spits at me. It doesn't even have time to sting before she's out the door, slamming it behind her.

Bella never slammed the door.

_Shit_.

I'm a fucking liar.

I run to the kitchen but the line is dead.

If I could have anything in this moment, I would want her here next to me. That's a lie. If I could have _anything_, I would take far more than that.

She told me not to call her. She made me promise. But that seems like forever ago. I don't know if that's still a rule.

I dial her number anyway.

It rings and rings and rings. I hang up as soon as her voicemail comes on. Because I can't leave a message without sounding like a fucking idiot.

My heart feels too big for my ribcage. I can't think or breathe or _think_.

I dial Jasper's number, my hands shaking.

He picks up on the third ring and I almost hang up. I'm not sure how many times he says hello before I respond.

"Meet me for coffee?" I'm sure he can hear it in my voice.

"Yeah, sure. Give me ten. Can you make it ten minutes?"

I can.

"Edward? Go straight to the coffee shop."

My mind feels like a maze.

"Damn it, Edward, did you hear me?"

"Straight there," I repeat back to him.

I hang up and get in my car. I'll go straight there.

I drive the lettered streets back and forth, back and forth, passing the pay phones I used to frequent.

A shiny Mercedes pulls out of a parking space along B Street and that traitor longing to use tells me to park. Across town from the coffee shop. I slow down and it would be so easy. To park. To make a call. To swallow. To numb the pain.

Just for today. Just to take the edge off.

I imagine Jasper sitting in that coffee shop waiting for me to show. I imagine the disappointment on his face. But I don't care.

I'll call Jasper and tell him I'm fine. False alarm. He won't buy it, but he doesn't have to.

A woman stands on the sidewalk, her hand holding the wrist of a small child. Her daughter. And something inside me busts open.

With my hands gripping the steering wheel and my foot on the brake, I can _feel_ everything.

I pound the horn with my fist, honking at no one.

Until I'm fucking sobbing. And I can't stop.

Because Wren is in a foster home with strangers. And I don't even know where Bella lives. And there's a little girl without a father.

And I don't want any of it.

A different horn honks behind me, bringing me back to the present. The driver is irate, hands in the air.

And when I look up, the girl and her mother are gone.

I speed off, desperate to get away. From this place. From the need and the want and the crazy rationalizing that takes over.

I circle around the parking lot twice before I convince myself to pull into a spot. I don't know how long it's been since I called Jasper. He's probably come and gone.

But I can see him from my car, at a table out front, his stupid hair sticking up in every direction.

I try to act normal as I approach the patio. Whatever normal is. But he looks at me like he knows every crazy thought trying to poison my mind.

I walk right past him and push the glass door open, the clanging bell ringing in my ears. I need a fucking cup of coffee.

"Alice is off today," the blonde behind the counter shouts over the hum of the coffee grinder.

I nod and try to act like my bones aren't trying to spontaneously break into pieces.

She doesn't charge me for the coffee. I can't even remember her name.

I try to compose myself before I walk out. But all I can think about is Wren's nose pressed to the glass.

_You're not a stranger. You're here every day._

"_Will you be my best friend?"_

Jasper watches me expectantly as I sit across from him. He doesn't say a word. He's the most irritating person I know.

My coffee is half gone by the time he speaks. "I could sit here all day." He holds up his reusable hippie cup. "Free refills."

"Rose got arrested."

He nods, far from surprised. "That's not why you're freaking out."

"Wren's in a foster home." Saying it out loud makes it all too real.

"Oh." It's all he says and I want to hit him.

"I called Child Protective Services, or whatever they're called."

"Good for you, Edward."

"No, not good for me. Did you hear me? She's in a foster home."

"Which you somehow deem worse than living with her mother who shoots up in front of her?"

"I should have just taken her."

"Then you'd be the one getting arrested. And for kidnapping at that."

I slam my hand down on the cement table, accepting the pain.

"For once, I just want _something_ to go my way."

"Because you deserve to be happy?"

I'm not sure how to respond to that.

"You do, you know. Deserve that much. Once you finally start believing it, maybe everything else will stop going to shit."

I can't talk about that.

"She asked me if that happens sometimes. She wanted to know if sticking a _needle_ in your arm happens sometimes. What else was I supposed to do?"

"You don't have to defend yourself to me. You did the right thing."

"You're a shitty sponsor."

"That's probably true."

We sit in the sun, quietly drinking our coffee. He doesn't even ask me what was going through my head. What I almost did.

"What if I raised her? I mean legally."

He lets out a long sigh and I'm not going to like it. "Edward, while I have every confidence that she'd be safe with you, no judge in his right mind is going to place a child with a single man in recovery who has no blood relation. It's just not going to happen."

His words sit on my chest, with the weight of every decision I've made up until this point.

_No judge in his right mind._

I pull at my hair, desperate for _something_ to hold on to.

"She deserves a father."

He eyes me warily. "Who are we talking about?"

"I don't know," I snap at him.

"What's her name, Edward?"

"Stop it."

"Meeting starts at seven. You're going. And you're standing up in front of the group."

Coffee cup in the trash, I grab my keys and I just need to talk to Bella.

"Where are you going?"

"Home."

"No, you're not."

"Yeah, I fucking am."

"Don't throw it all away over something you have no control over."

"I'm fine. I'll see you at the meeting."

I can feel his eyes burning my skin as I walk to my car.

If I knew where Bella lived, I'd drive straight there. I'd knock on her front door and I'd get down on my knees and I'd beg.

I drive home instead. To the place she used to live. I walk right to the kitchen and dial her number.

_Please answer. _

"Hello_?"_

My heart beats in my throat.

"_Hello?"_

"Is Bella home?" I stutter into the phone.

She's quiet for a second before she answers. "Just a minute," she says kindly. I still don't understand how it's possible that she doesn't hate me.

Every second feels like an eternity.

"Edward?"

I won't ever get used to the way she says my name.

"I'm sorry," I blurt out and I despise the way it sounds. "I have a meeting to go to so I can't talk long, I just wanted to call and apologize for earlier."

She doesn't say anything and I hate doing this over the phone.

"I was just a little worried. I guess it brought up some old feelings."

I close my eyes tight. "That's the last thing I wanted to do."

"Then don't do it anymore."

"They put Wren in a foster home."

Her voice is steady. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine. But do you think... do you think she's scared?"

"She's tough, Edward. Children are resilient. She'll be okay."

_She'll be okay._

"What time's your meeting?"

"Seven."

There's an awkward silence and I want to fill it. "Maybe you'd want to go with me sometime."

"To your meeting?"

"Forget it, it was a stupid idea."

"It's not stupid. I didn't know anyone could just go."

"They're open to the public."

She's silent again.

"I should let you go," she sighs. And I want the silence back.

"Alright." Hanging up always feels like torture.

I wait until I'm guaranteed to be late before I leave the house.

Out front, I stand among the littered cigarette butts and drink a cup of their coffee that tastes like bathwater. Because I don't know how to stand up in front of these people.

I slip into the room unnoticed. Once in my seat, I study the cracks in the cement floor instead of looking at their faces. But something tells me to look up.

At first I'm not sure if she's real or imagined.

But there Bella sits. In the back. Her eyes clear and wide. Here. At my meeting. I hold my breath.

I want to smile and frown and run away.

I never share with the group. I don't have anything to say to these people.

But I have a lot of things to say to her.

"If there is anyone here attending their first NA meeting, welcome. You are the reason we are all here.

"Just a reminder that no weapons, drugs or paraphernalia are allowed to be on your person at these meetings. If you have anything on you please take it outside and leave it there. If you've used today, please listen to what is being said and talk to someone at the break or after the meeting. Belonging to this fellowship is free. You are a member when you say you are."

I can't stop staring at Bella's face as she takes it all in. I tune out the rest. Because she's _here_.

I raise my hand and it's the first time I look away from her. Jasper is smiling like a fucking lunatic.

And when I stand up in front of this room full of junkies and has-beens, I feel like one of them.

I seek Bella out and when I find her I refuse to look away.

"I'm Edward. And I'm an addict."

"Hi, Edward," they all say together. She only stares.

"I have 475 days sober. I took my first drink when I was thirteen. I started taking oxy when I was twenty-three. At my worst I was taking nearly twenty pills a day.

"But I, uh, I was a junkie long before that. I guess you could say I was born an addict. My mother introduced me to my first high. She had a little problem herself. I blamed her. For a long time."

I remind myself to breathe.

"I was married. To the best kind of woman. I never thought I deserved her. Even when I did. And then one day I _really_ didn't deserve her. I lost everything. My wife, my... I lost my family."

There is a room full of people but I'm only talking to her.

"I blamed my mother. For a long time. It wasn't my fault, what she did. But it's still my responsibility. Because this is _my_ life. She threw hers away and I don't want to let her throw mine away too."

I tell her things that I've never told anyone.

"Some days I feel really strong. I feel like I've kicked it forever, you know? And then days like today remind me that it's a lifelong battle."

My palms start to sweat and my mouth goes dry.

"I, uh, had a moment of weakness today. All I could think about was one thing. And how simple it would be. And it would just be today and I could control it. And when the crazy is talking, I believe it."

I try to gauge her reaction at this admission but she gives me nothing.

"And then I saw this lady standing on the sidewalk with her kid and I just couldn't do it. This total stranger and her daughter. I guess they saved me today."

A smile pulls at Bella's lips. It only lasts for a second. But it's all I need.

"Thank you, Edward," they all say in unison as I sit. _Thank you_.

I don't hear another word spoken the rest of the meeting. Bella and I just stare at each other until the collection basket is passed around.

People shuffle out quickly, eager to light their cigarettes. Jasper grabs my shoulder, giving me a shove as he grins the way that only Jasper can.

And then he sees her standing there. He's still smiling but I don't know if he means it. Because his wife and his kid moved halfway across the country to get away from him.

"I'll catch up with you later." And he's gone.

Bella stands in front of me and I think I'm supposed to talk first. "You came to my meeting."

"Is that okay?"

"I invited you." I say the stupidest shit.

She puts her hand on my arm and I wish I knew what it means.

"Was it okay being here... with all of these people?" _You're better than that._

She shakes her head. "We all bleed red, Edward."

It takes a minute for her words to sink in.

Her eyes are big and serious. "Why didn't you ever tell me?"

_I thought you'd see me differently. I thought you'd hate her for it._

"I'm telling you now."

"Thank you, Edward."

_Thank you. Edward._

"I'll see you Saturday?"

"Saturday."

_We all bleed red._

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N:**

**Thanks to Susan and Kim for all things ever.**

**See you in a week.**

**(nine more school days until summer)**


	22. The Proposal

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: THE PROPOSAL

_The Country_

_Before_

* * *

I am going to be a father. I'm barely a man.

_It's positive. _The words are pressed against my neck. I try to speak but nothing comes out. It wasn't supposed to be positive.

I hold her by the forearms and step back because I need to look at her. I need to see. She looks the same. She looks like the girl with shiny hair who sat in front of me in chemistry last year.

"Say something."

But I don't know what to say. I _never_ know what to say.

"It's going to be okay," I tell her. I want to mean it.

She's pacing now. I've never seen her pace. "We can't have a baby, Edward."

But she's wrong.

"We _can't_."

"I don't know what that means," I try to tell her. _Explain to me what that means._

"I'm not a mother and you're not a father and we can't _do _this."

"People do it every day."

Sitting on the edge of her bed, she doesn't look like a mother. She looks like a frightened child. And it's because of me.

I kneel down in front of her and press my face to her stomach.

"Do you hate me?"

She doesn't answer. For what seems like forever, she doesn't answer and I'm sure she hates me more than anyone has ever hated another person.

"Why would I hate you?"

For so many reasons.

_For seducing you. For getting you pregnant. For being a loser. For tricking you into loving me._

If only she could ever love me as much as I love her.

"I don't know. I just thought."

"Don't ever say that again. I could never _hate_ you."

I wish I believed that.

"Besides, this is as much my fault as it is yours. I can't believe we were so stupid."

She thinks we were stupid. But it didn't feel _stupid_.

"What are we supposed to do?" she begs me, as if I'm the wise one.

_I don't know. I don't know anything._

A tear runs down her cheek and I want to cry too.

"Will you take me?"

"Take you where?"

"To get rid of it."

I'm suffocating.

She wants to get rid of it.

"Right now?" I ask her, trying to keep my voice steady.

She covers her face with her hands. I wonder if she knows I can still see her.

"Am I supposed to take you right now?" I don't know what's happening. I refuse to know.

"No," she finally says.

"Okay." _Okay_.

"I don't know if I can. If I can do that. What if I can't do that?" It's like she's begging. Like she's begging for me to be the kind of man who could be a father.

I want to be that. For her.

"Marry me, Bella."

I think I'm supposed to be on one knee instead of two.

Her face goes white. "Edward, be serious."

She wants me to be serious. But I've never been more serious about anything.

"I promise to love you forever."

"You can't promise that," she whispers.

"I just did."

"You just did," she repeats back.

"Marry me."

When she doesn't answer, I take her face in my hands. "Marry me, Bella."

She only blinks, staring at me with the widest, desperate eyes.

I kiss her cheek. And then the other. "Marry me." I kiss her lips.

"Marry me."

She grabs at me, pulling me onto the bed with her, pulling me on top of her.

She's laughing and crying and kissing me stupid. "You can't just do that. You can't propose to me on the floor of my bedroom in my parents' house."

"Say yes."

I pull back slightly so I can see her face. She is smiling wide.

"Marry me."

She nods, slow and steady, the smile cemented on her face.

But I need to hear her say it.

"Marry me."

"Yes!" She screams it.

I swallow the sound with my mouth. I kiss her like I'm going to destroy her entire life. But she kisses me back the same way.

There's a knock and we both freeze. I'm across the room before I even have a chance to think.

Mrs. Swan stands in the doorway. She looks at her daughter but doesn't comment on her tear-tracked face or messy hair. "Bella, I think it would be best if your door stayed open when Edward is here."

Bella looks away, refusing to acknowledge her mom.

"Of course, Mrs. Swan," I say for her. Because she wants the door open and I got her daughter pregnant. It's the only thing to say.

She keeps opening and closing her mouth like she wants to say a hundred other things, but she says nothing. She turns around and closes the door behind her on her way out.

I practically sprint across the room and open it.

"What are you doing?"

"Your mom said."

"Yeah and then she closed the door."

"Come on," I say, taking her by the hand. Because I can't be in her parents' house right now.

She doesn't have to ask where we're going. She plays with my fingers as we walk. And she's going to marry me. She's going to marry _me_. And we're having a baby. We'll be a family. A real kind of family.

I lift her up over the fence and I try to be careful with her.

We walk the rest of the way hand in hand and I just stare at her.

She stops abruptly as we approach the willow and I have to look away from her face to see what she sees.

"What the fuck?" Our tree is covered in hundreds of caterpillars. I try to swat them away but there are too many.

"What are you doing?" she shouts, grabbing my arm.

"Trying to get rid of them." I thought it was obvious. "We should spray them with oven cleaner. That shit kills everything."

"Oh my God, Edward!" She smacks my arm and it kind of hurts. "In a couple of weeks they'll all be butterflies."

I look at her like a scolded child. I've never felt so stupid in my entire life. I know that caterpillars turn into butterflies. I've known that since kindergarten. But when I see a tree full of caterpillars, I don't see butterflies. I only see what's right in front of me.

"Just leave them, okay?"

"Okay."

She can see it on my face. How stupid I feel. "Kiss me until I can't breathe?"

And so I do.

We lie under the willow tree, surrounded by branches, until we have to pull apart.

On our backs, both trying to catch our breaths, it feels like we will have this forever.

"Edward, why do you want to marry me?"

_Because you're carrying my baby._

_Because I've loved you since before I knew your name._

_Because I'll die if I don't get to be with you forever._

"I'm sorry I didn't get a ring."

"I don't need a ring."

"I still want you to have one." _I want everyone to know that you're mine._

She holds up a thin branch and strips it of leaves. I watch as she twists it into a tiny circle. She holds it up between her fingers before pressing it to my palm.

"I don't need a fancy ring." And the way her eyes shine. Like she already has everything she wants.

"Marry me?"

She holds her left hand out to me. And when I slide that willow ring on her finger it feels like the most real moment of my life.

"We can do this, right?"

"I promise."

I kiss her goodnight while she sits on the fence post, her legs wrapped around me. It seems unfair that I have to kiss her goodnight at all.

The entire walk back to my dad's house I just want to run in the other direction. I want to pick her up in my arms and run away with her.

But I have no job and no money and nowhere to go.

I sit on the deck, my feet in the pool with no water, until all of the lights in Bella's house are off.

And when I finally decide to go to bed, the sliding glass door is locked. I walk around to the front, only to find that locked too.

I pry the screen off of my bedroom window and climb in, grateful that I didn't have to ring the doorbell.

I listen for my dad but the house is silent. I walk through each room, turning the lights off as I go.

The fridge is empty, except for a ton of beer on the bottom shelf. I open one can and drink it in the dark kitchen. He'll never notice it's gone.

Second beer in hand, I turn the light off in the family room.

"Where the hell have you been?" My father's voice echoes in the dark.

I wait for my eyes to adjust. There he is, slumped in a chair in the corner. He looks like a corpse.

"Bella's pregnant."

He doesn't flinch or answer or even look my way.

"Dad?"

I watch him run his hands over his eyes and I know he's heard me.

"What is she on, Edward?"

"What do you mean _what is she on_?"

"Don't be smart with me. What kind of drugs is she on?"

"She's not on _anything_."

"Your mother was a liar too."

My stomach feels like it's filling with stones. "I don't want to talk about her."

"I don't care what you want to talk about," he slurs. "She was a junkie and a liar and a whore and it's about time you knew."

"I don't want to know." I want to shout it but the words barely come out.

"You were in the hospital for weeks."

"Shut up."

"You were so small, you barely looked human."

"I said shut up!"

He disappears into the kitchen and I stand frozen. He's back before I've moved a foot, cracking open another beer.

"Bella doesn't do drugs, Dad."

"You think I'm a fucking idiot don't you?"

"Maybe because you are a fucking idiot."

I see his hand but it's too late. The pain is instant as he smacks the side of my head with a closed fist. I hold my ear as he stares. And when I pull my hand away, I expect to see blood but there is nothing.

I stare at him, my mouth gaping, wanting to hit him back or cry or shove him to the ground.

"I'm sorry."

I don't ask him which part he's sorry for.

I watch him stumble to his room before I empty the rest of my beer down the drain.

I unlock every door in the house before I walk down the steps of the back deck in the direction of Bella's house. And when my feet hit the dirt, I'm running. I can't get there fast enough.

I sneak in through the window in their downstairs den. It's always left open. As quietly as I can, I make my way through the house and up the stairs to her room. I don't know what I'd do if her father caught me.

Safely in her bedroom, I stare at her sleeping face. Until the sight of her sleeping isn't enough.

"Bella?"

I don't want to scare her. When she doesn't stir, I take her hand in mine. The hand that wears a ring made from a branch. She mumbles as she wakes and then sits up suddenly when she realizes I'm here.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I just want to sleep next to you." That part is true.

"You have to be quiet."

She moves over as I undress. Once in her bed, I wrap my entire body around her and try to ignore my sore ear.

My hand keeps finding her stomach.

"You smell like beer."

"I just had one."

"Edward, it's okay if you're freaking out. We can talk about this."

I run my fingers over her belly button. "I'm not freaking out. I just wanted to be next to you. That's all."

"Okay," she mumbles, already half asleep. I hold on to her and try to tell myself that we can do this.

I spend most of the night lying awake in her bed, listening to the sound of her breathing.

And when she wakes in the morning, I want nothing more than to stay in this bed with her forever. I want to stay here and slow down time and just be with her.

We lie awake without talking for what seems like eternity but it's not nearly long enough.

"Promise me it's going to be okay. Promise me. Even if it's not true," she begs.

"I promise." _Even though it's not true_.

That's when I hear it. The angry screaming of a chain saw.

I throw on my pants and run down the stairs, making Mrs. Swan jump as I run shirtless through her kitchen. But I don't fucking care. I run as fast as I can across the Swans' back patio and over the fence. But it's too late. It's already been done.

I can see my father in the distance attacking the willow tree with the spinning blades, branches and leaves flying everywhere.

And when it falls to the earth, I can feel it under my feet.

Our willow tree lies in the dirt. The limp branches draped all over the ground, the trunk severed with jagged edges. Carnage everywhere. And all I can think about is all of those caterpillars that I wanted to kill with oven cleaner.

With my knees in the star thistle, I look up into the glaring sun and expect to see vultures circling overhead.

The sky is empty.

Bella stands on the fence, her hands covering her mouth. Her mother stands behind her, looking at my father like he's a madman.

And then Bella is running towards our fallen tree in nothing but her tiny sleep shorts and a tank top.

She's in my father's face, breathing fire as the chainsaw still spins in his hand.

And then I'm the one who's running towards them, Mrs. Swan on my heels.

Bella won't stop screaming. About things that have nothing to do with this tree. She's using words that I don't even know, like _negligence_ and _malice_.

She's in his face and when my father tries to push her away, I want to murder him with my bare hands.

Mrs. Swan shoves past me. "Get your filthy hands off my child."

He turns to her, a wicked grin on his face. "Your _child's_ pregnant."

* * *

**-HL-**


	23. Stay

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: STAY

_The Town_

_After_

* * *

I am saying goodbye to a house that will no longer be ours. We're sort of doing it together.

My apology remains on the wall, tattered wallpaper hanging, like the house itself has been ripped open by the words.

"Most people would trash the place," Bella teases me as I put a final coat of white paint on the baseboards in the dining room.

"I guess I'm not most people."

She exhales in frustration, more with herself than with me. "I didn't mean it that way."

"I know," I reassure her.

We've both been saying all of the wrong things lately. Or maybe we're just saying everything that we kept to ourselves before.

I watch her put her hair up into a ponytail and I can't figure out why it's so sexy.

She grabs a spare paintbrush, and I try not to cringe at the thought of her helping me. I've seen her paint. I won't be able to watch.

"Sorry we don't have any music." I'm not sure why I'm apologizing.

"I like the quiet." This makes me happy. I find myself trying not to smile, but there's no reason to deny myself something so simple. Even if she sees.

We paint in silence. I watch her from the corner of my eye as she scowls at the baseboards.

"Why can I see so many lines in the paint?"

_Because you're doing it wrong._

"You have to make long, continuous brush strokes."

"I am."

_I promise you, you're not._

As I walk over to her, all I can see is the mother of my child. Sitting on the floor with a paintbrush. In our house. It feels like the rest of it doesn't exist.

"Like this," I tell her, placing my hand on hers. We both pretend like it's nothing. But I can hear her breathing. I can _feel_ her breathing.

With my chin over her shoulder, I show her. It's the most erotic moment I've experienced in years.

I wish I could kiss her. I want to throw our brushes to the ground and kiss her until she can't breathe. With my hands tangled in her hair, I want to press her to the hardwood with the full weight of my body.

We don't do any of those things. We sit on the floor and laugh about stupid shit for almost an hour. Maybe we're both just high on paint fumes.

Forgetting that there is nowhere to sit, we move to the living room. What was left of the furniture has all been moved out. Except for the mattress on the floor in the bedroom. Tonight will be my last night. And then Jasper's couch.

"Do you want to see the upstairs?" It sounds like a proposition. But I don't mean it that way. I don't think.

She doesn't answer as she heads for the stairs. Pausing as she walks up, she turns to look at me. "They don't squeak."

I forgot what it was like to see her smile like that.

I stand at the bottom and smile too, waiting for it. I watch her feet. And when she hears the obnoxious squeak of the final step she stops. She doesn't turn around right away, but when she does her face is worth it.

She doesn't say a word. Neither of us do. But it's like a piece of us is being left behind. Old houses have stories, Bella used to say. Today, for the first time in a long time, maybe forever, I feel like we match.

"Are you coming?" she asks, her voice light. If I didn't know better, I'd say the last few years never happened.

My heart thunders in my ears as she stands at the top of the stairs. I left the door closed, unsure if I wanted her to see. I don't stop her when she turns right, her hand resting on the closed door.

I watch her disappear into the room that has been nothing but empty. Except for a stash of pills that used to live under a floorboard.

I give her a minute before climbing the stairs, resting for a moment on the squeaky one.

Standing behind her, I can tell that her mood has changed, even without seeing her face. At her side, I force myself to look at her. Her eyes are trained on the corner of the room, where the walls meet the ceiling. It's what she does when she's trying not to cry.

The woman behind the paint counter helped me pick the color. And when she asked me how old my little girl was, I said _two and a half_. Like it was nothing. Like I see her every day. Like I tuck her in at night. She called the color lilac. It's a flower. I think.

Bella's fingers brush across her cheek as she shakes her head. I want to say something but nothing seems like enough.

Maybe it was cruel to paint this room. Standing here with Bella, it seems like I was trying to prove something. I probably was. But it wasn't an empty gesture.

We stand in silence until I can't take it.

"How is she?"

She looks surprised by the question. It hurts, but I understand. She doesn't know how much I think about her. How could she know?

"She's good." She's smiling now. Her cheeks are red, like they get when she's been crying. But maybe she's not sad.

"Is she talking?" _Does she ask about me?_

She doesn't look at me when she speaks. "Full sentences. Although her favorite word is still _no_."

I can't stop staring at her face. She looks different when she's talking about her. Our daughter.

She sits down on the floor and I follow without thinking about it. She tells me more than I would even know to ask. I wish I already knew everything she is saying. And she laughs when she tells me about our daughter's love for spaghetti. Because it's my favorite. And maybe she's my daughter too.

She laughs a lot and it's all right there in her face. How much she loves her and adores her and would do anything for her.

I watch her run her hands along the floorboards as she talks, like she's trying to memorize them.

"Sometimes when I look at her, I can't find any part of me. I only see you."

I don't know how to feel, so I feel everything and nothing.

She's serious now and I want to go back to before.

"All that time I was trying to get pregnant... I thought there was something wrong with me. I felt like a shell of a woman."

"Bella..."

"You need to hear that, Edward. You need to understand what it did to me."

I nod. Because she's right. I want to understand. I want to know.

"I thought I was defective."

"Bella..."

"I thought I was _broken_. And then you said I couldn't be pregnant. You were so adamant when I was so sure. And when I heard what you had done... it _destroyed_ me, Edward."

"Bella, I..."

"Let me finish."

I close my mouth, nodding.

"More than anything I was mortified that I could love someone who was capable of hurting me so much."

I don't know what to say. I never know how to tell her things out loud. But I have to try. I have to fucking _try_.

"I was the broken one."

She presses her lips together, like she's trying to keep the words in. "And now? What are you now?"

There isn't a single lie trying to escape my mouth. Not one. "I'm trying to pick up the pieces," I tell her as honestly as I know how. "I'm trying to live."

We end up knee to knee. Touching without touching. It's what could have been. If we had been different. If _I_ had been different.

"You have paint in your hair," I tell her, reaching out to show her. She reaches at the same time and it's awkward until we're somehow holding hands. She won't stop looking at me and it feels so good and so terrifying that I can't stop either.

I take her other hand in mine and I think I'm shaking.

Cross-legged on the floor, we stare at each other until our faces are too close to stare. Until our eyes are forced closed and our lips are almost touching.

"What are we doing?" I blurt out, my lips brushing hers as I speak.

"I don't know," she whispers back, making no effort to pull away.

And so we stay like this, our mouths hovering and our fingers intertwined.

Until her lips are moving against mine. Until we're _kissing_. And not the way I imagined downstairs. I can't think. I can only kiss her back. And hold on to her.

It lasts seconds. Or an hour.

"Why did you do that?" I ask, my eyes still closed, my mouth seeking hers again before she can answer.

And she lets me. She lets me kiss her like this. She lets me forget.

"I think I wanted to," she tells me between kisses. _I think I wanted to._

I had forgotten the way she tastes. I had forgotten what it was like to feel alive. Maybe I never knew.

We are no longer knee to knee, no longer holding hands. Her fingers ghost over my arms. I pull her to me. Or maybe she's the one pushing my back to the floor.

Our bodies are pressed together, but it's her weight on top of mine and I don't know how this is real. Her hands rake through my hair, fingers tracing my scar.

She kisses the same and feels the same and when she moves against me it feels like nothing will be the same ever again.

We're both fully clothed, but the sounds coming out of our mouths. I just. Want. To fuck her.

"Edward."

_What_?

"Edward," she says half-heartedly as I continue to kiss her. I can't get enough of her mouth.

"We should stop."

The full weight of her body is on mine and _we should stop. _

"Okay," I tell her as I kiss her again.

"Okay," she says as she kisses me back. As she moves her hips against mine.

But we don't stop until it's almost dark and our lips are swollen. And even then, her fingers still trace my skin leaving goose bumps in their wake.

"We should get some dinner," she says, breathless.

Dinner is the last thing on my mind.

"Dinner sounds good. Just give me a minute."

She blushes even though we spent the last hour making out, her body doing things to mine that I know she could feel.

She leaves me there on the floor of the purple room and I don't know what this is.

I spend a few quick minutes in the bathroom jacking off while she's downstairs. And while it feels wrong, it's the most satisfied I've been in years, since a time when it was her hand instead of mine.

We get take-out and sit on the floor of the dining room eating out of styrofoam. It feels like we're just moving in. But we're not. That part of our lives is long over.

"What time do you have to get home?"

She looks away from me when she speaks. "My mom took her for the weekend."

For the weekend.

She bites her thumb and I don't remember her ever doing that. "I've never actually been away from her overnight. I'm kind of freaking out." She's never been away from her and I've never been with her.

She pulls her keys out of her purse and I have to do something.

"Don't go. Please." I want to kiss her. But not kiss her goodbye.

She exhales, shaking her head without breaking eye contact. "What do you want, Edward?"

"I want things to be different."

"Then make them different," she practically demands, her mouth curling into a frown.

I reach for her. She doesn't protest. She lets me swallow her in my arms. She lets me crush her to my ribs.

She looks up at me as if I have all of the answers. She has always seen something in me that I could never, ever see.

"I told myself I wouldn't do this." I'm not sure if she's talking to me or herself. I don't even know what we're doing.

"Bella, what do _you_ want?"

Her face looks tortured. "I want to sleep. With you."

_What_?

"I mean _sleep_. I want to stay here with you. I want to spend one last night in this house. More than anything, I want to wake up and feel you next to me. And I hate myself for wanting any of those things." The last part gets me in the gut.

I feel the need to start kissing her but that wouldn't be fair. She's confused. And she'd kiss me in spite of it.

She'd kiss me and she'd stay and I'd feel like a thief.

I let my arms fall to my sides and she takes a step back. Just like that, we are simply two people standing in the same room.

And then she says the last thing I'd ever expect. "Please don't stand there and let me walk away."

I feel paralyzed, afraid I'm going to do exactly that. Let her walk away. Because that's what's best for her. But Jasper says that's not up to me.

She shakes her head, as if she knows I've already decided. But I refuse to let that to be the end of our story.

I reach for her hand, barely catching her fingers. Her eyes shoot to mine and there are questions there that I wish I had the simple answers to.

I hold her fingers in the living room. And when I lead her away from the front door, she follows.

We take the stairs slowly. I feel like we should talk about this. But maybe there's nothing left to say.

In our bedroom, I kick off my shoes before I let go of her.

I can't stand the loss of contact for more than a second. I'm holding her face in my hands and when her eyes close, I can feel her eyelashes against my thumbs.

I kiss her eyes. "Stay with me."

She nods without opening her eyes.

"Look at me. Please."

She blinks and I don't know what to do now that she's staring at me. But I needed her to see me.

"I'm sorry for making you feel like a shell of a woman."

"I know."

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

Her fingers rest on my belt loops, pulling slightly, before finding their way under my shirt.

I shiver at the feeling of her hands on my bare stomach, my eyes closing on their own accord.

"I just want to feel your skin. Is that okay?"

I swallow and nod because it's the only answer I know how to give.

Her hands travel over my flesh before I help her pull my shirt up and over.

She turns around and I watch as she removes her own shirt. The sight of her naked back, if only for a second, makes me feel like I'm made of sand. She quickly picks up my T-shirt and puts it on before removing her pants.

Her shirt, bra and jeans lie in a pile on the floor. She slips under the light blanket that lies across the mattress without saying a word.

I'm not sure how to do this.

She stares at me as I stand frozen, shirtless and terrified.

"What do you want, Edward?" she asks again. Her voice sounds melancholy. I think that's the right word.

"I don't want this to be the last night."

She bites the inside of her cheek and I'm not sure what any of it means. I watch her pull her ponytail loose and I want her so badly it feels like I've been lit on fire.

And just like that, a different kind of longing comes creeping in. My body forgets that my seven places are long empty. I wonder if she can see it on my face.

"What?" she asks. And there's my answer.

"I'm supposed to talk about it when it happens."

"When _what_ happens?"

"When I have an urge to use," I tell her. I thought I'd feel ashamed, but I don't.

She nods, her face giving nothing away. "Come here."

And so I do.

She's smiling and I'm confused.

"You have a half naked girl in your bed and you're thinking about getting high."

"I know," I laugh. "I'm a fucking idiot."

"You're not," she tells me, shaking her head. "And thank you."

"For what?"

"For telling me."

"I don't know if it will ever go away."

"Yeah."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I don't know either."

We're both under the blanket but we're not touching. I want to feel her skin too.

"Edward, I know you don't sleep with jeans on."

I laugh nervously. They're off and thrown to the floor, leaving us in our underwear, and her in my shirt.

Her hand finds mine under the sheet and it reminds me to breathe.

I curl myself around her and I'm amazed at how easily we fold into each other. My chin over her shoulder, I hold her firmly against my chest. I can feel the warmth of her body everywhere.

With every breath she takes, every single fucking breath, I realize how much I still love her.

Her shoulder peeks through the neck of my shirt. I want to kiss it. With her hand still in mine, I press my lips to her skin.

She exhales long and low. I wish I knew what she was thinking.

"Goodnight, Edward."

I kiss her shoulder and breathe her in and try to be right here in this moment. We both lie awake in the dark, just holding on to each other.

Until at some point I drift off.

I have dreams about fucking her on a mattress on the floor. And when I wake in the middle of the night everything feels soft and warm.

She's awake too, staring back at me. Her body is still pressed to mine but she's facing me now.

"You're handsy in your sleep," she whispers.

It's only then that I realize that my hand is up her shirt.

"Sorry," I smile.

"You're not sorry."

"I'm a little sorry."

She leans in, kissing me softly on the lips. Just once. But our mouths don't separate.

So I kiss her back. Just once. My lips pressed gently to hers.

And so it goes like this: her kissing me, me kissing her. It's different than making out with all of our clothes on.

My hands slide over her skin, my fingers climbing up her ribs and we're no longer taking turns kissing each other. We're just kissing.

And remembering how it used to be.

_Imagine what you could do to me right now if this was our home._

_I can't wait for our first night in this bedroom, Edward._

Our first night. Our last night. I kiss her like she's everything. Because I need to her to know. I need her to feel it. My mouth tugs at hers with an uncontrollable longing. Because I don't want her to be the girl I kiss. I want her to be my _wife_.

She starts to pull away and the panic tries to strangle me.

"Stay," I plead, gasping for air. _Stay_.

She shakes her head before pulling my T-shirt off and I feel like an idiot.

We're in bed together and she's topless. I'm so fucking desperate for everything that she is. I can't help but stare.

She looks different but the same.

My mouth immediately goes for her tits. She shivers as I kiss her, my hands finding hers again.

"I never held your hand enough."

A noise escapes her mouth and I think I might die if this is the end.

Her skin is hot, even under my mouth. Like she's burning too.

"I miss you."I say it out loud. _Do you miss me? Is that all this is?_

We're completely naked. And this is happening.

I kiss the corner of her eye.

I'm too selfish for this to be goodbye.

Our legs tangled together, we kiss and kiss and kiss. Like the first time in this bed in this room in this house.

_What's your favorite thing, Edward?_

_Kissing you naked in our house. I want to kiss you naked in our house forever._

Forever.

Caging her beneath me, I kiss and touch every inch of her too hot skin. Her knuckles. The soft side of her elbow. Her hip. Her face. I kiss her face.

Her hands are hesitant at first, like she doesn't remember me. Like she doesn't want to remember.

"Stay," I beg.

"I'm here," she pants against my neck.

_Stay._

But she can't stay. We can't. It's not that kind of mattress on the floor.

She closes her eyes again and I can't bear it.

"Stay with me. Bella, please."

When she looks at me, her gaze is feral. "_You_ stay."

I feel like I'm choking. I could lie and tell her that I don't know what that means, but I won't. "Okay," I tell her. "Okay."

We stare and stare and stare. We kiss and touch and try to hold on to each other. She pulls my bottom lip into her mouth and I want to be inside of her in every possible way.

And when I find myself right there, she nods as if I've asked a question.

This is happening and I need her so much.

We hold hands as I slowly push inside of her. And it has _never_ been like this.

I watch her face as her eyes close and her jaw goes slack. And the way she moans my name, I have to stop for a second. Because I never thought that we could have this and yet it feels like we will _always_ have this. I almost believe that this could never be goodbye.

And when her eyes open, black and bottomless, I start to move. I can't help but _move_ inside of her. It's been years and it's been months and days of trying to remember this. _Us._

It's too much.

Her breathing is already erratic, and I've hardly been inside of her for a minute. She sounds like she's about to cry.

"Bella."

She won't answer me.

"Bella."

"Don't stop."

I don't. I _can't_.

Her legs wrap around me, pulling me closer. Her hands squeeze mine tight. As tight as they go. I'm not the only one holding on for dear life.

I press her to the mattress until it doesn't matter who we were or where we are. All that matters is the building ache.

And I know that _I'm sorry_ shouldn't be enough. And _love_ isn't supposed to be enough. And I will never, ever be _enough_. But right now it feels like this is all we need.

We are nothing but summer sweat, rocking together on a mattress on the floor.

_Love me. Fuck me. Love me. See me. Don't leave. Please._

I love her slow and gentle until we both want more. Until the last several years apart catch up with us and we can't get close enough. I love her until her voice fills the empty room and her body goes limp.

I love her.

We spend the rest of the night under a sheet. Remembering what it's like to feel good.

* * *

**-HL-**

* * *

**A/N:**

**To Susan and Kim for reading this chapter 80 thousand times.**

**And to you, for reading it at all.**


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